#love the pierrot vibes it gives

[axolistic]

NEW AU JUST DROPPED BABY

The amazing digital circus x ava (I'm insane). This is based on a video I saw on TikTok and just the episode itself.

Basically this happened, and both of these dumb stick guys ended up trapped on the digital circus. Here are some important things to take into account:

They don’t remember each other, but because they are not considered people, they still retain some things from their lives. Not memories, but general vibes, like: I don’t like this person or deja vu.

Also because of this, they sorta look like they do on the outernet, but just not at first glance.

They usually avoid interacting with each other, due to the aforementioned vibes.

TCO is easily irritated by anyone, specifically Victim. Will usually get violent if threatened.

One of the only things they have in common is their hate for Caine, a rare coincidence, how they both hate being overseen by a superior force.

Both of them still retain scars, because I think it's angsty.

Some notes about TCO’s design:

Can still use their powers, but are not aware they have them. Because of this, they got startled when they accidentally (that's up for debate) attacked Caine with their laser eyes.

Clothes were inspired by fire breathers (the act on a circus). Not a lot though, since I don't know how to draw jewelry or patterns lol.

When splashed with fire or any other liquid (excluding gasoline and substances similar to it), the flame in their head will die, but it will lit again automatically.

The pattern on their arms are not tattoos, but rather markings? I don't know how to explain it.

Some notes on Vic's design:

They are inspired by pierrot clowns and mimes, cause I thought it'd be ironic.

I made them look, or at least resemble c!Alan a bit, just for funsies (and angst).

Glasses can emote, and if you take them off the mask, it would just be those paint markings.

The mask can be taken off but with help. Victim cannot take it off by himself (he has tried).

Final Notes:

They can both speak, but they can also talk like in the drawing. (TCO by spitting letters made of fire and Victim by just... yeah.)

None of them remember their name, and I'm not sure what names to give them, it would be nice if you could give me some ideas-

Anyways, I kinda love this AU, and maybe I'll write a fic just for fun.

(Also for the Patchwork Family fic I'm writing, it's probably not gonna be discontinued, the next chapter is still a wip, but it's near completion :3)

[snufk1nn]

The triumvirate as commedia dell'arte characters

@mcspirkevents bingo card prompt free space

My ideas behind each of them and why I chose that specific character is after the cutoff :))

Spock is Pierrot. The character of Pierrot is a symbol for putting on a mask to hide one's true feelings which felt fitting for Spock. He is done with charcoal to give him a soft and kind of even sad vibe to mach the character of Pierrot.

McCoy is Columbina. The character of Columbina is sassy and is a faithful confidante, constantly demonstrating her improvisational skills. McCoy is trusted by others and has to improvise constantly in each medical crisis that happens aboard the Enterprise. McCoys outfit was made with old doctors coats in mind. He was done with watercolours to have a bold yet risky feel, because watercolours can be unpredictable.

Kirk is Innamorati, with some influence of Il Capitano. With all the chaos that occurs in commedia dell'arte Innamorati, which translate to Lovers, are characters that always end up winning in the end. They are very selfish and self-centered and along with loving themselves, they are in love with the very idea of love. It's well known that Kirk is infact not selfish at all, but to the audience of the show and other characters his actions aren't always crystal clear. Sometimes his actions could be deemed selfish before we get to the part of the conclusion of the episode. Kirk was made with acrylic paint to give him a romantic and shiny feel. His outfits design has heavy influence from II Capitano.

[m1kas0ra]

Assigning random songs from my playlist to (not all) enstars characters but i don’t have a reason for 99% of them, mainly vibes

My playlist is mainly vocaloid and jpop and the characters are in no particular order either, ALSO i’m putting both yt and spotify links cus tumblr keeps saying no if i use too many spotify ones for some reason, unless i’m just. Stupid

Pls don’t expect a lot of the characters in this 😭 i just did this cus i thought it was fun

Sora: Roleplaying Game

I also thought of this song for makoto but uhhhh i put sora :3 both work tho

Wataru: Pretty U

IT’S A KPOP SONG BUT HEAR ME OUT. THIS SONG SOUNDS SO WATARU

Tori: Dreamin chuchu

idk i just think the song’s cute and suits tori :(

Aira: I am you

AI (love) NAN DESU ??????? *AI*RA SHIRATORI??? AI RAVU???

Mika: Migikata no chou (Butterfly on your right shoulder)

mainly cus Mika’s fs1 has a butterfly but c’mon

Nazuna: Karakurui Pierrot

exvalk moment or. doll idk 😭 i wanted to give this song to Mika at first but i felt like it also suited ex-valk nazuna

Natsume: Magic

magic.

Arashi: Ohedo Julia Night

Mitchie M songs give me arashi vibes i cant explain but u have to listen. Mitchie M and arashi

Rinne: YY

THIS SONG IS SO CRAZY:B ACTUALLY LISTEN TO ME. YOU WILL LISTEN TO M- *gets shot*

HiMERU/Kaname(???): ERROR

Stares at kaname and oremeru (i dont even know all of their lore, just like the main idea)

Niki: Stand By You

i dunno why but i first thought of niki (crazy:b in general but mainly niki) when i listened to this song

Rei: Lavie

listen. Lavie lavie chu. Rei.

Koga: Roki

a fairly obvious one but c’mon bro rock n roll

Ritsu: Suima

This song gives sleepy vibes and i thought of ritsu

Kanata: Icedrop

this feels so kanata coded

Mayoi: Cute no kanojo

i once saw fanart of mayoi in the mv of this song and i jus oughghhghghgh

Ibara: Shanti

I don’t know why but hear me out pls

I FORGOT TO ADD MR NICE but his assigned song is definitely “Very Nice” by seventeen, no arguments

Thank you for bothering to read thru the whole thing

[this-is-a-dystopian-parable]

Reacting to the new Three Houses photos!

My Three Houses brainrot is setting in and I have to keep myself from going insane and/or spoiling myself before I see it. So lets go through the new photos released by Playbill yesterday (May 3rd)! My predictions below, but I don't know any more than you do so there won't be any spoilers!

Right off the bat. The set? STUNNING. Giving Octet/Comet/Ghost Quartet if it had a proper set. The concept of the show is an open mic night so the bar setting is a given, I love the little tables with menus, makes it very Great Comet. I love how many of Dave's shows are set in a specific place that the performance factors into. You are at an academic lecture, a jazz club, a church basement. Wonderful job by dots.

Love that the Grandmother and Grandfather double as the bartenders/waiters here. A note about the cigarette from the playbill, these are herbal cigarettes that are actually smoked for real, they just don't have any effect. Just a fun fact for realism.

ONSTAGE BAND lets gooooooo. You can see the other two characters sitting at the two little tables downstage.

No thoughts. Pretty :)

DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON

I'm SO curious why he's here. I had assumed, naturally, that the puppet in this case would be the Wolf. But no, there's a dragon here??? My prediction is that this is either connected to the video game references in the show (we'll come to that), it's a puppet a character made, or it's some hallucination/dream sequence.

Dragon is sitting at the bar??? He's havin a drink??? Oh my god???

Band onstage!!!

You can see how close the audience is in this one!!!

More that are close-ups. My only note here is that the background behind the bar is different! So I assume it changes between characters.

HERE WE ARE. THE SIMS PLUMBOBS. THATS SO SILLY. I'm also really curious about the way Dave would use the context of the Sims in this show. Like I'm predicting it's going to be more than "people playing video games stuck at home" but will also have some comment about socialization and human connection. Since Mia Pak doesn't have one here, I feel like we're likely to see an Octet style form where during each person's individual story, the others act as a side characters.

Oh my gooood he is so unhinged and silly. What is he up to. The intense glare. The plumbob again. My prediction is that he will sort of hang around and antagonize from within each person's story, taking on different roles and acting as an omnipotent force.

ALSO. ELECTRIC GUITAR. Giving Beowulf but also The DJ. I guess that's what I'm leaning towards with his style of antagonism, he's just there to poke fun at them and be mean and have fun. I love him, he looks like he's having so much fun.

I love the boxes but it's also really surreal, because I JUST did a show in October that was also about quarantine and featured tons of cardboard boxes. Seriously. The playwright had decided to clean up the house during quarantine, and put things into boxes to keep them organized. But he fell into depression and for months just lived out of the cardboard boxes he didn't have the energy to unpack. This show was about a depressed woman who couldn't sleep, and was haunted by a Pierrot clown and a puppet. Anyway. I'm getting similar vibes here.

Those are all my thoughts on the photos! But I have a couple more from the updates to the program, which you can access here.

The characters have new names added to them! It's now Susan/Shelob, Sadie/Pookie, and Beckett/Zippy. I wonder what these are about, if they're just other characters they play within the stories. My prediction is though that they're either online names or related to the Sims bit mentioned earlier.

According to the program, there are only THREE musical numbers. Not acts, "musical numbers" that's the exact wording.

First House: Susan

Second House: Sadie

Third House: Beckett

Coda

Dave Dave Dave. Maybe this is a previews thing, and the different names just haven't been solidified? Either way, I support doing whatever he wants from a show standpoint but I'm curious how it would translate to an album. Of course, that's a problem for another day!

Woof. Long one. Thank you for sticking with me here and stay tuned because I am going to be sharing a LOT more about this show as it develops!

[lilac-nites]

I made coords with recent purchases. I bought The Black Ribbon's blue apron from LM to wear with Meta's Violet Bouquet skirt. I also bought Meta's Frill Ribbon JSK set in Beige.

The Black Ribbon apron is very cute and made with a great fabric. The apron is a really great piece and it covers the gaping that happens with my other blouses. The bib is removable and there are pockets that can fit my phone. The straps are adjustable with two buttons. I was hoping that it'd give a more classic look to this coord, but it looks very sweet.

I bought the JSK and under the knee socks in Antique White. I love how this looks and it gives the sweet-classic/country vibes that I'm aiming for. I just need a straw hat to wear with it. The Meta set also came with a large headdress that I still need to figure out how to wear.

I still have more purchases planned from Atelier Pierrot and I'm looking for a short-sleeve and long-sleeve ivory and white blouses.

[desultory-novice]

I really would like to see interactions between the Wave 1 characters. An earlier post you made did make me think about it some more.

The animal trio would certainly view Gooey as their little pal, but the real question of course lies with Marx. I wonder how Rick, Kine and Coo would interact with him? I interpret that Gooey is similar to Kirby to where he easily forgives and likes just about anyone, so I think he and Marx would have little to no trouble between each other.

I suppose maybe we could extend this subject and wonder how Marx could possibly interact with the DL3 animal trio, too. I had this hilarious thought of Nago stealing Marx's beach ball to play around with, lol.

I'm, of course, rather soft on Marx, as a everyone surely knows by now. I don't dismiss the things he did, nor his less heroic traits (if he can be said to have ANY heroic traits at all :laugh:) but I do like to imagine what he's like in his off hours, so to speak.

Something that I was just thinking about the other day was that, currently, Marx is listed as a "道化師"or "jester" ("ピエロ" or "pierrot"/"clown" in the Dedede Encyclopedia) but when he made his first appearance, he was known as "魔法使いのマルク" or "Marx the Magician."

What all those things tell me is that Marx, in his day to day life, is probably an entertainer. The "magician" thing could have referred to him being a stage magician, or maybe people in Dream Land knew him as the helpful neighborhood wizard? I'd think it would be in his best interest to try and earn a relatively reputable reputation for himself before pulling off his grand scheme.

Going back to the Dedede Encyclopedia entry about Marx, King Dedede talks about him like "...I think he caused some kind of big incident once?" so I'd like to think that the truth of his and Kirby's fight wasn't all that well known and people don't really hold that against him.

Poppy Jr: "Hey, Kirby! How'd it go with the sun and moon thing? Marx said something about checking on you and then he left?" Kirby: "Mmm. Yeah. We fought. He blew up. Everything's good now though. ...Yaaaaawn... Sleepy time..." Poppy Jr: "...???"

Honestly, I find it hard to imagine anyone in Popstar holds anything against anyone? That seems so antithetical to the way we've seen life depicted as on the star-shaped planet.

-

What I think is kind of neat about the Animal Friends in combination with Marx is that they all kind of give off this... circus vibe to me?

You know Ricks' one move, where he takes out an umbrella and spins Kirby around on it? That's known as 傘回し or "umbrella spinning" in Japan and it is a historical performance art. And so, I like to think that Marx, Gooey, and the Animal Friends (DL2 and 3) make up a kind of low-key "circus" act for Dream Land. Or at least bond over festivals and such.

I mean, the Wave 1 team are all pretty laid back and probably much more interested in having a good time than any of the other Waves, who have more outside-Popstar connections. Gooey might be Dark Matter, but that's never mattered to them. And HC aside, Marx on the surface is just a fun-loving, silly little guy. I mean, look at this face! Look at him!!! He just wants to be silly!

But yeah, when I think back to the fact that the opening of MWW has Kirby alongside a Bronto Burt, a Waddle Dee, and a Poppy Brother, I thnk that Marx is probably someone who deals more with the "commoner" side of Dream Land, which is where Gooey and the Animal Friends fit to me too.

As for opinions on him... I think that the older-coded members probably treat him as a funny little scamp. I think that, despite their best attempts not to laugh, Marx's hijinks or bad puns probably get a dumb giggle out of them. They've been around enough to not take him too seriously. (The Nago and Marx fighting over his ball imagery is the cutest darn thing and thank you so much for it!)

As for the younger ones, Chuchu probably loves him WHEN he's being explicitly cute but turns up her nonexistent nose at him when he's not. They probably also share bow tips. I can see Marx playing a lot of games with Pitch, with the others keeping an eye to make sure he doesn't play too rough. (Alternatively, he's taken a couple of painful "warning" pecks to the head by Pitch Mama.)

Yep yep yep! I can see Gooey and Marx having the strongest bond out of the 8 of them too. Because while the others all share the trait of being "laid back" and "easy-going" both Marx and Gooey have something special going on with them. They're both different in a way that the others don't get. Not that either of them have a need to (or CAN) talk about it. But I think Gooey probably looks up to Marx for being weird and unexplainable "like me" and Marx digs Gooey for being kinda "wrong" - like him.

[lightningandfireinmybones]

westerosi circus? time for me to use all my circus town knowledge.

Helaena either gives off pierrot clown vibes OR someone that does the dog tricks. (animals in the circus is a touchy subject, but lets just pretend the targs are good to their animals and there's no exotics) Aegon is definitely a hobo clown ala emmet kelly but maybe styled more like a pathetic prince? Maybe an Aegon the older/Aegon the younger bit? Like Aegon the older is the sad pathetic foil to the polished and heroic younger? Luke, Jace, Baela and Rhaena are all part of The Flying Velaryons. Valaena was supposed to be part of The Flying Velaryons but nows she's a target girl- Aemond was a little lost until he realizes that his love of daggers could be an asset and definitely a distraction enough to pull Valaena into his act. I just know the sex afterwards is insane. Nyra gives me fire breather vibes who changes up her act depending on if she's pregnant or not. Daemon gives former equestrian turned Ring Master after Viserys retires. 100% still rides on his horse during the circus. Viserys when he was young did trick riding with Aemma, when he married Alicent (an investors daughter) she refused to join the circus and made him quit performing. Now he's exclusively business side and teaching Daemon and Nyra the ropes. Any of the kids that are too young to be performing actual acts have modified "kiddie" acts. tight rope walking only a few inches high, unicycles, juggling.

Bestie I have zero circus knowledge so I’m ceding completely to this, I trust your judgement

Yes to everything you said, the flying velaryons where Luke and Jace and Baela and rhaena teamed up, twisting like dragons through the air

Before aemond came on board, Valaena had her own acrobatic/trapeze (AERIAL SILKS PERHAPS??) routine with no net, just absolutely flying through the air in dazzling feats of flexibility with no fear and no gravity

Aemond joins so he can watch Valaena every night, but is messing around with daggers on the ground one night while she’s practicing around, she says something sassy while hanging upside down over him, he teasingly tosses one of the daggers at her (with COMPLETE confidence he won’t hit her, he’s really just that good) and watches her eyes go wide as the flies next to her ear, nearly cutting the silk she’s hanging from

It’d be quiet for a sec, as they both stare at each other, Valaena deftly dropping down a little further so she can see him better, another knife already in his hand, cutting her down for real so he can press the knife to her skin and test whether that look in her eyes is fear or excitement

[zenyuumi]

@solaaresque ok mika time :D

Fav thing abt them: his character development drives me insane. the entire story of human comedy makes me wanna gut myself just. Him 🥹🥹💗💕💖💞💖💕💗🥹💕🥹🥹

Favorite line: so so many. They are all from human comedy

brOTP: nazumika ! :D i love them

OTP: narumika nd shumika! Maybe they can even co exist ? He has two hands for a reason

random hc and unpopular opinion: none. I am sorry

song i associate w them: karakuri pierrot nd maybe tokyo teddy bear. I know it doesnt fit AT ALL esp w how he is now but. the vibes the songs give me is enough reason for my silly mind

fav pic of them: his fs 1 nd 2

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Bimonthly Media Roundup

-Hatoful Boyfriend (Video Game) - Hatoful finale and wow what an ending it was. I really have to applaud this game on turning a silly bonkers premise into a genuinely unnerving psychological horror while actually having interesting characters and emotional moments. I wouldn't say I connected enough with any of them to buy merch or anything but they had more depth than I was expecting from dating sim characters (and birds at that) with exiting little twists. The true ending was the culmination of all the routes and somehow delivered the most impactful story line of all, with a sort of fucked up but true case of "yeah minus the birds thing this is kinda how humans react to sudden and unexpected political shifts huh?". I'd definitely recommend giving it a playthrough/watch, it may seem a little slow at first but boy is it an experience.

-Face Off (TV) - Seasons 4 and 5 are on Netflix so I've been putting this on as background noise while I work. Really fun to see the neat challenges and designs, especially as I like to think how I would approach them myself (though more from a drawing/writing standpoint than crafting obviously). Too bad the whole show isn't available, I haven't found an archived set of all the designs and challenges online so I feel like I'm missing out on some fun ones.

-Suzume (Movie) - Okay so I had typed a whole big review on this out that glitched and did not save. I don't want to type it again so short version is that I respect the animation and themes or equating grief over the loss of a person with the loss of a location and community, but didn't really vibe with the lack of character or tension in the story. Also I feel bad for the little gremlin cat and think he deserved way better, justice for that cat that twink guy should've stayed a chair.

- Campfire Cooking (Manga) - A quick reread of the whole manga when I just wanted a self-indulgent relaxing cooking series. It's still very wholesome, though I will say that I think this is one of the rare ones where the anime is better than the manga due to the visuals really enhancing the appetizing meals and cute mannerisms of the familiars. Season 2 will be coming out soon which I am now fully prepared for, bring me the tiny dragon and loser elf.

- Six of Crows (Books) - Left without internet I was forced to listen to the pre-downloaded audio books I had bought months ago. It's actually pretty interesting so far, I do love heist stories, but I don't feel like talking about it until I'm farther in.

- The Apothecary Diaries (Anime) - I'm too tired to talk about how incredible this was right now but believe me it's really really good. I love MaoMao, this setting is amazing, the characterization of everyone is grounded enough to feel like unique people while leaving room for silly comedy, and the mysteries and twists are so compelling that I could barely stop watching. Highly recommend, might even rewatch it again soon.

- Dungeon Meshi (Anime) - Y'all weren't kidding about those lesbians huh? Good for them, Good for them.

- One Piece (Anime) - Arrived in Wano, the new art style is charming and so are Otama and Okiku.

- Genshin Impact (Video Game) - Making my way through Sumeru.

Listening To: How Did You Love by Shinedown, Give Up Your Dreams from The School of Rock, Everything Goes On by Porter Robinson, All the Boys by Panic! At The Disco, Willow by Taylor Swift, Rose Colored Boy by Paramore, Her Diamonds by Rob Thomas, Stray Italian Greyhound by Vienna Teng, Hey I Don't Work Here by Tom Cardy, Pierrot by Kei, and Can't Catch Me Now cover by Annapantsu

[xanfeursel]

heard you were bored so here are some questions :) (i realized halfway through that these are all durgetash because those little shits have taken over my mind) do you like leaning into the angst of durgetash or do you prefer the more lighthearted (aside from the atrocities) dynamic? if larian dropped a gortash romance, is there any icks that would absolutely ruin it for you?

or conversely, what would be the best thing they could add in a hypothetical gortash route?

what were your biggest inspirations for lophi and vyper? do you prefer one over the other or are they equal in your eyes?

(hopefully you won't have to answer these since you'll get out of work soon)

HELLO ANON. im sorry to tell you infact waited till i actually got home to answer these because i have!!! THOUGHTS and OPINIONS about the questions asked . thank you very much btw these are all really good questions ill have fun answering

FIRSTLY, it all depends on the kind of durge gortash is being paired w imo. with vyper i tend to lean more into These Two Are Fucking Insane while w/ lophi i lean more into the sort of melancholic 'angsty' side of durgetash that i think can be real yummy too. and it's all because of who vyper and lophi are as characters pre-tadpole, too. vyper liked being a loud insane freakus while lophi was a lot more reserved and kind of a miserable mess, and that informs their relationships w/ the characters around them. i think both are good and fun to explore and i definitely like exploring the more angsty side w vyper x gortash and vice versa w lophi x gortash, so. i guess both. really. LOL .

secondly, going to answer both of the gort romance related questions in one, but i think i'm probably in the unpopular opinion that gortash doesn't really neeeeeeeed a romance and i could go without it in game. i do think he deserves more content and screentime, but that's something i can say about orin also, and frankly a Lot of parts of act 3. me and act 3 have a toxic on/off again relationship. alright.

that being *said*, if i was mr larian and i was to implement a gortash romance, i'd have it be something exclusive to a durge/evil run. or at the very least, have it have consequences with your party (i.e karlach leaving or something. love gort but i do not think you should go off romancing him scott free).

i Do think having it be exclusive to a more evil-aligned run would help add more actual content to doing an evil run (and god knows we need some with how bg3 seems to like punishing people who just want to do the evil options They Gave You) and would make the most sense, but all in all i'd just hope it's handled better than the mizora sex scene cause god how that whole thing is handled still pisses me off. hopefully this all makes sense

tl;dr, its a fun idea but i can very easily go without it especially knowing how the game treated its one other antagonist romance option

now for the lophi and vyper question... i do obviously have my biases towards vyper /looks at my blog theme/, but i genuienlly cannot pick favourites with them besides that... i use them both to explore different aspects of the durge origin in different ways bc despite what some other people say i Do think you can be very flexible w durge as a concept despite the pre-established lore for them ^_^ and i think it's very fun to play around with.

as for specific inspirations, lophi takes a lot of insp from vintage pierrot art + has accidentally gotten a very 1920s makeup vibe in My Mind. i should also note her name comes from the scientific name for anglerfish, cuz thats what i had in mind when giving her those freaky sharp ass teeth i always draw her with

and while of course, both of my durges are trans, lophi specifically was birthed from my want to make a dark urge that leans in as heavily as she possibly could in the whole trans allegory thing. so theres that as well!

vyper's specific inspos are harder for me to pinpoint cause he's much more of a 'made up as i went' character than lophi, given he was my First dark urge and i didnt really fully know what i was going into all this yet while making him (and also i was maybe a little bit high while doing so...lol) THAT SAID THOUGH, i did initially make him with akira fudo from devilman in mind. he has the horn style he does because it reminded me of devilman ... although the akira insp is very lose and barely effects his character now.. ~_~ despite bg3 being my main fixation atm devilman is still a very very important piece of media to me so vyper being loosely akira-pilled is not too surprising if you know me well enough lololol

[fishwikipedia]

recent ideas bc i like sharing my thoughts . nobody rob me

. The Blah Blah Blahs - Brave Little Abacus

short part between 1:36-2:05. probably kyle o’reilly but open for someone with Love In Their Heart and aggression. was also tossing around yuka sakazaki or willow

. New Black History - JPEGMAFIA

swerve. i refuse to Not do this

. As We Enter - Nas & Damian Marley

swerve in our glory. gotta

. Hey Rich Boy - Millionaires

okada & the bucks lmaoaoaoaoooo

it’s too funny i starting giggling every time i play it out in my head

. Boy Soprano

yuta in hell

. Boy Bye - BROCKHAMPTON

yuta in hell

trouble with this is i mainly like 0:00-0:18 and 1:36-2:22 in terms of lyric relevance and vibes but there’s Space between this. oh well

. Prison Sex - TOOL

yuta in hell

. Masc - Chat Pile

guess

also danny but i think he’s #Winning too much these days for it to resonate

also jack perry but i need him to fucking lock in. give me something to work with. someone kick him down this stairs hard enough to knock the shit eating grin off his face and challenge me emotionally

The Gentlemen Is A Dope - Diana Dors

toni/mariah. i wish i thought of this sooner

you’d think the subject would be toni but it reads like mariah if she was 10% less callous. also the idea of mariah referring to toni as a dope/not bright/ignorant is #funny. especially current toni

this is Money but i need the storyline to play out more so i don’t jump the gun

this song fucking goes man

. Might - Modest Mouse

something to do with a 1 v 1 feud that’s rough/emotional enough to correspond w the lyrics. i’m rlllllly leaning towards yuta v danny but it’s so old at this point i desperately need them to run something back if i want it to Really work. if they do this is getting printed pronto

i may just do it regardless

. Billy Knows Jamie - 100gecs

was tossing around anyone cool but i think kyle fletcher has earned this spot

. Mad Pierrot - Yellow Magic Orchestra

0:00-0:20 something fast passed and fun and silly and probably willow

. Symphony - NAOKI

someone that radiates cluster B personality disorder

probably PAC

. Necessary Discrepancy - NAOKI

Disturbed Woman to some degree

likely julia maybe marina if she fucking wrestled in aew one of these days

nobody rob me

i want to make another video very bad but i'm not sure with who yet. too many people i like so much

[hopedfutur20-rosingtea]

You know this lady?

This lady right here, yeah-

Her character design sucks.

Not her actual character- her design of choice.

Look- I don't mind it much- but the fact she looks like a simple statue or even a glowing doll lamp just doesn't give me the vibes that she is a real person...

So I gave her a new look in my AU!

I wanted to give the vibe of 'Mother Nature' and 'peaceful, elegant queen' than what the actual canon version gives off, which is... not much, sadly.

So here is her look in the Cure Court AU!

And here's the info about this lovely woman:

Title: Queen Euphoria Royale, Ruler of Jubilife, Queen of Jubilife, Wife of Emperor Pierrot Nogo, & Mother of Candy and Pop

Name: Euphoria Royale

Sex: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 120

Height: 7'9 ft. | 2.40792 m.

Weight: 216 lb.

Bloodline: Light Family (sub-category to Dreamer Family Bloodline)

Sexuality/Romanticism: Pansexual, Panromantic

Type of Creation: She was physically reproduced in the human way by 2 people.

[carousel-clownery]

This appeals to maybe one other person Ever, but I paired the main Ninja Team with Commedia Dell'Arte archetypes. Decided to post on main Just Because, but I have too much Commedia Dell'Arte brainrot to just have lying around. So.

Actual content under the cut because this is long.

Is For You ( vaguely threatening )

Lloyd -- Pedrolino -- Tends to get clowned on ( literally ) by both the plot and the other Zanni ( albeit in a more lighthearted way ). The Italian flavour of Pierrot, but I keep them both distinct since I associate Pierrot with more melancholy aspects. Writers often consider Pedrolino the "go-between", or someone that "keeps the play moving". Both of those suit Lloyd pretty well.

Jay -- Arlecchino -- It just works, given that he's a jokester and typically seen as the comic relief of the group, much like the archetypal Harlequin. Also seen as the most iconic of the Zanni, and Jay just has that vibe to him. Can't even say why, he just Does. Also as far as fashion goes? "Arlecchino is ostentatious" is a bit of an understatement, and we saw the game show outfit. 👀👀

Kai -- Scapino -- My brain said Scapino! Lovable rogue who's impulsive enough to get into trouble, but also tends to be able to get out of it, as well. Also Kai just gives me the vibes of someone who would have a Brighella variant as his main archetype, given that Brighella's vibes are more brash than most of the other Zanni, and that suits Kai a lot.

Zane -- Menenghino -- One of the much lesser-known archetypes, and incredibly difficult to research for. As for what Menenghino's actually like, the description in Rudlin's book of "An honest man, prudent and resourceful, has balanced judgements and a generous disposition" ? That's Zane! Bonus points for the original costume for Menenghino being a white tunic with a belt.

Cole -- Mezzetino -- It was hard to vibe check him, but you can't just leave someone out like that. Mezzetino's a softer variant of Brighella, and can either be a clown and a fool or one of the team braincell holders, which kind of works as far as I'm putting pieces together. As well as that, one of Mezzetino's cornerstones is actually being into the performing arts, being skilled at singing and dancing, which reflects Cole's upbringing before joining the main team.

Nya -- Innamorata / Colombina -- Fits well as both the Innamorata and as a Colombina archetype, given how much attention was put onto the whole love triangle thing by the main plot. Colombina's archetype is mostly as "the competent one", or the one that keeps the other Zanni out of hot water, at least sometimes. The Innamorati archetypes are deliberately left vague and it's more of a plot function than a character, but it's obvious Nya's set up as the Colombina, from being both the counterpart to the rest of the team that was allowed to engage in plot officially later ( Historically, Colombina used to just be one of the intermission dancers since female actors weren't allowed to be a part of the story on stage; Nya wasn't allowed into the main Power Squad(tm) for a hot minute )

[chattegeorgiana]

Can I just say how freaking articulated you are?!

I’ve been reading your thoughts/theories regarding NaruSaku and SS and I love how you keep your cool and analyze the facts and I’ve been having a blast reading your posts.

Also, when I first started watching the anime, I think I was 13/14 years old and, just like you, I used to ship SS but as I got older I was like OMGWHY, and at first I was really shocked with how much I started to enjoy the idea of NaruSaku since up until that point I only saw them as friends.

Adult me doesn’t like SS at all, I’ll protect Sakura with all that I have until the end of times and I can’t stand how some people see their relationship as “healthy”.

Seeing that I just finished reading some NaruSaku stories, I’m feeling warm and fuzzy and filled with love, and I opened my tumblr and saw some hatred being throw your way, I’d come here and share with you that you’re awesome and I thoroughly enjoy reading/seeing/fargirling over your work. Happy Sunday and NaruSaku for life. ❤️

Hey dear!!

First of all thank you so so much for your nice words!

Lol, it’s like we have the same story, heheh. I was also a SS/NH as I started the anime. I think it’s no wonder that many of us used to be, since that’s what the anime version of the story pushed forward.

They literally stole interactions from canon from NaruSaku and gave it to the others. 

For example how Naruto in the chakra training says to Sakura how great she is and whatnot? Studio Pierrot takes it and applies it to Naruto telling that to Hinata in fillers.

Sakura genuinely being concerned for Naruto and wanting to give up both her chance AND Sasuke’s in the chuunin exams selection? 

Sakura is shown downright malicious there, like she is glad Naruto is going through this turmoil, when it’s viceversa.

Also, in the canon manga Naruto never thinks about copying from Hinata, while in the anime he does so.

So no wonder people disregarded NaruSaku that much. By doing everything in their power to show Sakura as being this malicious little girl, this only had a ripple effect on both the fandom, NaruSaku and their reception.

That’s why when I turned to the manga, I found a totally different story than the anime. 

Which is sad, because the manga tells a rather much more touchy story than the anime, to be honest.

And this is also the reason I won’t be able to support SS. Because no matter what, the source material shows us SS as not being the right choice for Sakura. Through the plot, through character dynamics, through symbolism. You name it. 

People can try defend it as much as they want. It’s out of the necessity to fill a void. I know I used to do the same with Sakura, hoping that Kishi will finally make something of her. He didn’t, sadly. And that’s something I accepted.

I still love her, I still considers she has one of the best developments within the story (looking at source material, not the adaptation), but I won’t hide under the pretenses that she’s perfect.

Hell no. Her love for Sasuke makes her miserable. Her potential is unused. She was sidelined compared to the main cast, like it or not.

There are a lot of problematic aspects with her as well, as a character. But I ADMIT that. Unlike SS-ers that make it look like this perfect love story that breaks the curse of hatred. Nah. That’s NaruSasu’s story first of all, and second of all, like I said, God forbid these kids enter such a relationship. And I very much mean it.

However, I do defend Sakura on other counts. On those which I can, on those that put her on this hateful pedestal that she’s the meanest, when it’s not true. When she is one of the characters that has a change in behavior IN THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER SHE MAKES AN APPEARANCE!

I wonder how many people can brag about that in real life. People have NO IDEA how difficult CHANGE IS.

Look at this fandom. They weren’t able to change even now, years later, in their regards to Sakura. She is still one of the most hated characters in the history of characters (which is so interesting to look at from a sociological point of view).

But they talk all high and mighty about a character who is showing change ever since chapter 3, like I said.

It’s funny because when it’s about admitting faults, like SS is problematic? Noo, it’s whatever. But when it’s about admitting that Sakura showed real change in her relationship with Naruto and even FLIRTED with the damn guy and ACCEPTED A DATE with him, people are like NAH, SHE’S A BITCH, NEVER TREATED HIM RIGHT YADDA YADDA YADDA.

Or like... when it’s about her and the comedic relief punching thing, OMG SHE’S ABUSIVE!

But when they copied the same traits to Hinata and had Himawari punch the shit out of Naruto OUT OF THE BLUE FOR NO REASON, it’s OMG SO KAWAII.

Like, these people are shown a mirror of their very moral standards and they still won’t admit their double standards.

It’s fun to watch though. But aah, anyway, I don’t care about those kind of people. It’s funny to observe them, but NOT MY tribe.

Thank you very much for your kind message dear! You really made my day with it, gotta admit.

Sending back positive vibes towards you tenfold!!

SPREAD THAT NS LOVE, because that’s what NaruSaku always has been. ABOUT LOVE, about SHARING the love for one another, in more ways than one. Cheers!

[yori-gami]

@saffronbasmati That's a stance I've surprisingly never considered, but it actually makes tons of sense. Well, to me at least. I've often considered the earlier Windows games to be more dreamlike and ethereal in nature because ZUN was mostly just taking it easy worldbuilding-wise, and after a short while he started getting more into worldbuilding and the first four games (IaMP included) definitely have this much more different, more dreamlike vibe to them than MoF-onwards. In fact, I'd say the Hifuu CDs still sort of have this specific vibe to them, and although it's starting to fade away there are always still elements that keep the vibe. For example, the presence of alcohol. But really, the calm, old-fashioned, almost watercolour-y feel of the early Windows games (and even the PC-98) could definitely be due to the alcohol ZUN regularly consumes and did consume back then when he wasn't taking his game development career quite as seriously as he does now.

@pleasecallmenicole Somebody that's been following me for a little while now, happy to see you interact <3 Now unfortunately I don't have quite as many thoughts about Hifuu as some of the other people on here but I will say they are quite the charming little pair of characters and I greatly appreciate them for what they are. Their designs are nice and simple, giving room for redesigns that still keep them recognisable, the CDs are bangers every time, and just the very nature of their story always clears room in your head to think about them every once in a while. But now that I'm thinking about them, I also want to bring up this epiphany (?) i had earlier this year while thinking about Touhou.

The duos of Renko & Maribel and Reimu & Marisa parallel each other. I'll explain. They're both iconic best friend duos with non-arguable lesbian tension between them. One's specialties lie in hard mechanics and is often touted as the more outspoken and condient one of the duo whose gimmick also involves stars (Renko & Marisa) and the other has more spiritual powers, is generally quieter but also has an attitude, and is fundamentally connected to Gensokyo in some way (Maribel & Reimu). They even visually parallel each other, only with reverse body-types where Renko is more short and stocky like Marisa but has Reimu's straight trimmed dark hair and Maribel is taller and more slenfer like Reimu but has curly golden-blonde hair like Marisa. Also Reimu and Renko's names both start with "Re-" and Marisa and Maribel's names both start with "Mari-". However, theory-wise I don't really have anything beyond "I just think that's neat" and it's just a thing we could possibly pick up on at some point.

What I find really interesting about this series of parallels is that Jacketko and Labelko from DiPP also fall into these parallels, at least visually. This time it more closely adheres to Reimu and Marisa's general character premises, with Jacketko wearing predominantly black / brown, having long, curly golden-blonde hair, wearing a hat and having ties to some sort of curse ritual or magic practice (as far as I'm aware). And Labelko looks directly designed to be a shrine maiden, as she has the straighter darker hair up in an inconvenient hairstyle and she is wearing shrine maiden attire, similar to Reimu. If the parallels adhere, we can tell what they might be like character-wise, and since it's heavily implied that Jacketko was the Pierrot, the killer responsible for the deaths of the eight honest men in DiPP, this could tell us some possibly dark and intriguing stuff that we don't know about the other two pairs of parallels. Idk I wanna dive into the implications of all three duos being parallels of each other.

Also my lab au ROTI-loving ass wants to know what's up with TORIFUNE. There's a creature described as a chimera up there??? I need to know more!

touhou people on tumblr give me a random touhou thing to talk about

[canmom]

Animation Night 38: Mamoru Oshii

Hey there friends! It’s time for Animation Night again. Still not gotten round to filling in last week’s Lupin post, but it’ll come. Anyway...

Well, the last many months, we’ve been working our way down the list of big name anime auteurs - and it’s time for this guy!

Mamoru Oshii is surely best known for his famous film adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, but that’s actually something I’m gonna be saving for next week when we’ll be doing a dive (off the rooftops) into that franchise. Instead, this week I want to share some of Oshii’s various other films, bc they can be quite a mood!

So, from the top! It probably explains a lot to note that Oshii grew up watching a lot of artsy European films by people like “Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Pierre Melville” (thanks WP). He went into anime storyboarding pretty much straight out of uni in the 70s, working on fairly minor baseball anime; the break came in 1981 where he joined Studio Pierrot to work on the scifi romcom series Urusei Yatsura, especially the second film where he started to indulge in time loop plots and pouring the philosophy juice.

While scifi movies would turn out to be the niche that best suited Oshii, his first step away from TV anime was to try a new format for anime: Dallos (1983-4) was the very first OVA, which is startling considering how quickly the format took off by the end of the 80s. You can read someone’s very detailed plot summary here; according to that guy, it was left frustratingly unfinished after four episodes, and the story wasn’t a great deal to write home about, hence largely forgotten beyond the ‘first OVA’ footnote.

Oshii, meanwhile, had a much more exciting plan - he was planning a Lupin III film. From the sounds of things, what he had in mind was a sort of cyborg-filled, GitS-like take on Lupin, but the premise was too weird for Tōhō and Yomiuri; having heavily advertised Oshii as the director (I guess he was already a ~marketable name~ back then?) they decided to just cancel the film! Tragic honestly, I’d love to see an Oshii take on Lupin, that would be fucking wild.

Oshii took the ideas with him, and instead went ahead to direct one of his first really personal films: Angel’s Egg, at Studio Deen (not one familiar to me, but they seem to be a v long running studio who’ve worked on quite a bit of high profile stuff including Ranma, the first Fate anime, and the Higurashi/Umineko adaptations).

This is where we hit the art, or if you prefer, vibes, that Oshii is known for! Angel’s Egg is almost wordless, full of surreal, frequently biblical imagery and gorgeous Yoshitaka Amano character design. The plot is kind of abstract, but broadly, a soldier boy is wandering a strange empty land where armies fight shadow fishes; one day he encounters a girl with a giant egg, who asks him not to break it... and the egg remains totally fine and definitely does not get broken at some later point in the film no way 🙃

Oshii had grown up Christian, but while making this film, he became disillusioned with his religion, and well it’s not a stretch to see that getting metaphorised in the film! But while this is the usual angle taken by critics, Oshii has himself refused to give a specific interpretation of the film. In any case, here we see the onset of certain images that would recur throughout Oshii’s films: fossils and extinct animals, military imagery of soldiers locked into aimless tasks...

Following Angel’s Egg, whose producer Toshio Suzuki was among the founders of Ghibli, Oshii briefly collaborated with Miyazaki and Takahata towards a film that would be called Anchor, only to fall out over some kind of vague creative differences. Instead, it was time for the ‘militarised police force’ era of Oshii’s career!

Joining a small creative collective called Headgear at the invitation of his friend, screenwriter Kazunori Itō, Oshii would spend the next few years on two parallel strands: the extremely down-to-earth mecha series Patlabor, imagining the cops of a near-future setting where mechas are ubiquitous and not always reliable; and the mostly live-action Kerberos series, which grimly imagines a future where Japan went full fash again, creating a specialist police force in blatantly SS-inspired gear who end up going rogue.

I’ve seen the first Patlabor film some time ago, and a lot of it is like, squad room shenanigans, though it has some very impressive action scenes at the end on a collapsing artificial island. We can certainly trace some of its influences to events at the time - like with Akira, there is for example the Tokyo housing bubble taking place in the 80s, which is in the film transformed into literal hopeless attempts to construct artificial islands. Machinery runs amok in civilian neighbourhoods, etc. etc. It saw the beginning of Oshii’s long collaboration with composer Kenji Kawai, though not yet at the heights of his GitS soundtrack!

But it’s the second Patlabor film is the one which seems to be best known: Patlabor 2 (1994) saw Oshii work with the renowned Production I.G., and things more geopolitical, imagining a conflict between different branches of the JSDF stemming ultimately from a failed ‘peacekeeping’ mission in Cambodia which turns a military commander against the political authorities. (In real life, Japan sent police forces along with a number of other countries under the UN to Cambodia in the aftermath of the Cambodia-Vietnam war as ‘peacekeepers’ in the early 90s, so that would have been pretty fresh in the news.)

This leads to some remarkable scenes of martial law being imposed and tanks rolling through Tokyo while the civilian population sits by. Looking for more background to this, I came across this interview with an American magazine; Oshii describes his intent as reflecting Japan’s role in the cold war:

OSHII: I think it may be difficult for Americans to understand. The story is really based on political programs that exist in Japan, so it has quite a few deep meanings within it. In Patlabor 2, I wanted to describe the Cold War for Japan. It was a war, but a silent war. When the Cold War existed between the U.S. and Russia, the "stance" of Japan was not to be directly involved. Even though Japan was involved, it kept insisting for fifty years that it wasn't. I wanted to describe that fake peace.

To contextualise a bit - in the years after their defeat by America in WWII, Japan signed a number of defence treaties making them an ally of the United States and letting the US maintain military bases their, pretty much perpetually, though not without significant protest against further alignment with the US in the cold war. For their own part, article 9 of the post-war constitution, Japan renounced the ‘right to belligerency’ and prohibited maintaining an army. In practice, though, they have a developed pretty big one, and were a close ally of the US in e.g. providing logistical support for Vietnam and deploying troops through the UN in ‘peacekeeping’ operations. Yet officially, Article 9 still applies, and is (to my understanding) considered quite important; wanting to revoke it is a pretty hardline nationalist position.

I also came across a much more in-depth interview where Oshii talks to Hayao Miyazaki. It’s a remarkable interview, as much for getting a sense of Miyazaki’s worldview as Oshii’s (also: Miyazaki is quite mean! though Oshii hardly seems to mind). As far as the film, Miyazaki seems to think the film is decent entertainment, but seems unimpressed with the film’s stance:

Miyazaki: About the conversation between Arakawa and Goto about the false peace and war of justice, that enumeration of words, I thought that "here we go again, the Oshii tune as usual."  I thought that that's what you've been saying all the time, but since they are fast-talking, we can not stop and think (while watching the movie).  So, you have removed the organic agriculture, you have removed the debate at the Diet, in short, the most tiresome things in our daily life, the worldly nitty-gritty, you removed all those things, and created a computer game in the Oshii world.  I saw the movie as such.  Before I saw it, I had thought that Oshii-san's book of thoughts might have come out, but (after I saw it), I thought that Oshii-san was in the mental state of moving to Izu to settle down to watch Tokyo. -laughs-

Oshii:  That's fairly close. -laughs-

Miyazaki:  In that sense, it was interesting until I saw your hands.  But the minute you set up the movie with more worldly settings so that it will have a more interesting conspiracy, such as, "it was the Clinton government's trap to inflict economic damage on Japan, or to gain a political compromise (from Japan)," it further loses reality.  America is also in a fix.  If they do (fight), I feel that it will be a more stupid, violent, simple, kids' brawl.  Such as not buying Japanese cars anymore.  But this is complicated, too.  What about American cars with Japanese engines? -laughs-

I admit, my interest in this film was mostly spurred by fans talking about the impact of some of its scenes, so I’m looking forward to seeing what our take on this angle might be...

Meanwhile, as far as Kerberos, I admit I don’t know a great deal about this one. The series comprises a trilogy of films, two live action and finally one animated in Jin-Roh, which is the best-known of the series. The second you see the armour on the cover you know it’s about fascism lol. Beginning as a manga and spreading to Japanese and Korean film, anime, and a bunch of other media including even fucking... monographs (???), it’s set in a grim alternate 1950s, in which different branches of the state’s violent apparatus conflict with each other as well as the insurrectionary ‘Sect’. The background is surely the real political turmoil of that time, epitomised by events like the assassination of communist political figure Inejirō Asanuma by an ultranationalist with a sword.

For our purposes, the one that gets the most attention is the third film, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999), and the first to be made as anime - though it was actually remade as a Korean live-action film a couple of years ago. The film concerns a member of the Kerberos division (the guys in the SS-looking armour) who is put on trial after he hesitates to kill a girl carrying an IED, only to come into contact with someone who is allegedly her older sister after her release. The story is framed through Little Red Riding Hood; if you ask random youtube video essays I found, it does so in order to complicate an overly simple victim/villain binary but idk that might just be that guy’s take (for my part, it seems pretty obvious that the guys in nazi armour are the bad guys and it’s probably good to blow them up).

I won’t be screening this tonight bc, ngl, no matter how gorgeously it’s shot and animated, the heavy fash imagery makes me uneasy and I want to see what it’s doing with it!

Oh yeah, and in between making Patlabor 2 and Jin-Roh, Oshii did a little number called Ghost in the Shell. More on that next week! But GitS is notable for many things: meticulous direction, stunning imagery (Production IG absolutely killing it on the animation front), and overall effectively distilling Shirow’s chaotic manga down to Oshii’s preferred philosophical themes. It’s no surprise that it’s the film that got him international recognition.

In the 2000s, Oshii went back to live action, directing a fascinating-sounding movie called Avalon about a VR game in 2001, followed by the psychedelic Assault Girls in 2009 (which I’ve heard good things about from @velocityvsreality​ who is far more familiar with the tokusatsu world!) He also played around with CG imagery, as in Mezame no Hakabune/Open Your Mind (2005), which was a sequence of psychedlic visuals set to Kenji Kawai’s fantastic music that played in iMax theatres. Like much of Oshii’s films, it’s concerned with evolution, there are military themes, it puts striking imagery above all else... it’s a cool watch.

In terms of anime, though! He made a sequel to GitS, titled Innocence, which was sadly not all that successful. In 2009, though, he started on another original story: The Sky Crawlers, depicting a world in which strangely emotionless clone children fly WWII-like aeroplanes as a sublimated form of war. As with many of Oshii’s films, it’s slow and contemplative, meticulous with tech... it has, sadly, been years since I watched this film so I can’t immediately summarise what it does with the theme, but I still remember it as creating a striking mood that stayed with me after the film.

The last decade has seen Oshii return once more to live action, working in scifi films and suspense thrillers, but I am running out of time to research these! But he is actually coming back to anime sometime presumably very soon, with the series Vladlove (a name that is palindromic when transliterated into Japanese) being announced as a kind of... yuri vampire comedy??? Definitely not something I expected given Oshii’s filmmaking habits so far, but I’m sure it’s gonna be one to watch!

We have 15 minutes left for this Animation Night to commence at 7pm UK time, though I’ll probably leave it a little late so I can scribble out a title card. The place will be twitch.tv/canmom as usual! Hope to see you there, Oshii is a master of imagery and atmosphere and will surely give us lots to discuss!

Playlist is gonna be:

Mezame no Hakabune (while people are coming in and I draw a title card ><)

Angel’s Egg

Patlabor 2

The Sky Crawlers

(and next week, more Oshii with GitS night!! want to make that one really special)