#might go into more depth and/or add some illustrations later idk

[optimistpax]

Thinkin about how TF: Exodus would’ve been way more interesting if Megatron had a more gradual decay into tyranny and villainy instead of whatever the heck was going on in that book.

Like. Megatron writing smth that catches Orion’s eye and they start talking about a shared vision for a better future for Cybertron.

Megatron slowly bringing Orion around to the idea of a straight up revolution, clear out the old council and start over. I don’t think Orion would be adverse to violence per se, but he’d probably need some convincing to agree to a full on coup.

And their revolution is successful! They take the council! 

Megatron, with his charisma and massive support from the revolutionaries is the natural choice for the next Prime (Orion is mortified at the idea of being considered for the position). Now they can work on building that vision of a bright and beautiful new Cybertron. 

The revolution is over.

Except it’s not.

“The old council is a threat and the future of Cybertron will be in jeopardy until they are dead.” Says Megatron. 

And maybe Orion agrees. Maybe he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what he thinks though, because the Prime gets the final say. 

Of course it doesn’t stop there. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Not too long after the council is eliminated, the friends of the council are a threat and need to be eliminated as well. Then it’s council loyalists. Then it’s vocal critics of Megatron’s council. Then it’s anyone who isn’t a vocal supporter.

Somewhere along the line Megatron and Orion’s relationship begins to fracture over Megatron’s persecution of a slowly growing number of Cybertronians and his increasingly militarized guard (His descent into tyranny).

Orion, a former archivist, is familiar with the mythology surrounding the Matrix of Leadership, so in a last ditch attempt to save their friendship (and the future of Cybertron) he goes to try and find it, hoping guidance from past leaders will save Megatron from becoming the same villainous leader they’d tried to rid Cybertron of (he’s too late, but he’s blinded by the idea of getting back the Megatron that Was rather than who present Megatron is)

So he goes on this underworld type heros journey and is deemed worthy of acquiring the Matrix.

But when he returns to the surface, Cybertron has fallen into chaos. 

Orion confronts Megatron and Megatron doesn’t even want the Matrix! He doesn’t want input on his leadership from anyone besides himself. He’s offended that Orion would even suggest it and declares that if Orion is not with him, he is against him. Orion finally has to face the fact that the Megatron that is currently leading Cybertron is no longer the friend that had the same values as he did.

After a small crisis of identity (and some difficulty avoiding Megatron’s elite guard), Orion consults the Matrix to see if the past leaders of Cybertron have the answers.

They might not have the answers, but Orion refuses to sit back and watch Cybertron return to being stifled by opressive leadership, just under a different leader.

So Optimus Prime steps up to the responsibility.

[yume-fanfare]

hi i am that anon from like 29th Dec (last dang year) who said i read ur tsuki no hime and loved it and that u understand Aizou. i have read more of ur stuff since then and now i NEED to ask you for writing advice, on both characterization and general writing tips since I didnt mention it before. Sorry about that! i just forgot i sent an ask and i do not get notifs at all (or does anon asks not get notifs?) Also, ART STUDENT! That's why the nice art and art leaning!! I feel smart for sensing it

oh yup, tumblr doesn't send notifs for anon asks! but i'm glad you did see the answer anyway

this post is hideously long, so answer under the cut!

so, on characterization: it is mostly a matter of what would they say, rather than what you want them to say. the joke about "the characters do what they want to" instead of what the writer wants is pretty much true if you want them to be in character lol (that's why sometimes a little bit of OoC isn't too bad)

checking the source material is the most important thing: look at prior similar interactions the characters have had and how they reacted

this is kind of hard with LIPxLIP, as there aren't that many translated texts about them but with honeyworks the most canon and reliable thing to use as reference are the mvs. the mvs are drawn in a way that can pretty much be understood even if you don't have the lyrics, and sometimes it's even better if you can't read them, to properly focus on the images better

look at their expressions closely: while aizou is always explosive in his anger, yuujirou often has a more indifferent expression. so, when they fight, aizou is probably the one to blow up first while yuujirou maintains his composure better. it's kind of the classic "this was only a brief passing panel but i am going to expand on it" www

but the thing about fanfiction is that it's always a bit of a character analysis in itself. you don't start writing having already a color-coded folder of possible situations and reactions a character would have for each setting. you just throw the characters in a scenario and then think from there onwards, and eventually you'll be able to have the folder of situations and what you think their reactions would be like. (though, this links back to the prior point, if the characters have gone through a similar situation in canon, use that as guide! plus, finding little references to canon when reading is always fun)

for general writing, i'm going to mostly talk about my own experiences and process! i'm in no way a professional though

the basic is reading a lot. not just books but also fanfic. in fact, since you're writing fanfic, i Encourage you to read fanfic. even if your story ends up novel length, the way of treating the story is different from that of an actual novel. for example, because you're working under the premise that everyone knows the characters already. the general style of fics is different as well.

in fact, the style is the main reason i'm saying this slfkslfkslkf

read a lot of stuff and find a style you like. think of it as sewing together pieces from here and there to make a frankenstein amalgamation: this person's metaphors, the comparisons from here, the descriptions from there

personally, i adore the "long one-shot with a long title formatted (like this)" fics that are mostly feelings and descriptions and as little dialogue as possible, and some that occasionally play with the "show don't tell" rule, and some months ago i read a book whose descriptions amazed me because you could feel what the character was focusing on the most, rather than being general descriptions of the situation (i actually have a lot of thoughts about descriptions but that's a post for another day). but also i really like dialogue and plot-driven stories, descriptions can get boring and before trying to break rules, you have to be really good at following them

but, let's go step by step: developing an idea

for this i'm going to mostly reference the multichap i finished a while ago as an example

i started with just a few vague concepts in mind: non-idol au with aizou who does some sport and likes music but is insecure about his singing and yuujirou who does some music related thing and encourages him to sing in a way that's somehow related to the hozier song to noisemaking (sing), because it's what inspired me to write in the first place

then, from then onwards i wrote down what would happen in the first chapter of the story bullet-point-list-style, including things like the roommates part or the clubs the boys were in (at first yuujirou was in the choir club lol the change was a last second decision that idk why i took) and then bits of dialogue here and there that would be The Turning Points. those first dialogues were for the fight at the end of ch 1, the apology-date in ch 3 and then some vaguely unused ones for the "yuujirou encourages aizou" part, as those were the first key moments i thought of

because, since it's enemies to friends to lovers, an important aspect was character development

not all fics have character development bc not all of them are long enough (if you're aiming for short and sweet then there's no need). but if they do, i recommend you write down how the character was at the beginning of the story and then how they were at the end and then fill in the middle later, think of what those key turning points that made the character change were (the more little things you add, the more gradual it'll be)

samishigariya illustrates this very nicely: the song starts and finishes with the same lines, but the ending ones feel more light-hearted. the beginning has pre-arisa ken and pre-getting-along-with-yuujirou aizou, when they were the lonely people the title mentioned, and the ending, when they're not lonely anymore. the in between can be seen in depth during the other songs: ken before arisa was a playboy who didn't take love seriously, but after meeting her he realized that games were not all there was to love; and aizou used to be quite cranky and high-key a loner, but then he "meets precious things and knows of love". i will not elaborate on that because this isn't an aiyuu post but Oh You Know

for the fic, aizou would go through that same process, more or less: someone who doesn't really form meaningful connections with people but who, in the end, would end up having quite a bunch of people who care about him as his relationship with yuujirou advances too

since the relationship was the main focus, i wrote a very simple outline for how it would develop throughout 5 hypothetical chapters that was just: 1. civil w each other but mostly bad > 2. bad > 3. half friends > 4. pining > 5. date

and then with that in mind and the bullet point list, the final basic outline ended up like this:

there were scraped ideas and ideas that made it in later, but i believe having a simple outline, a bare skeleton to add things to, is important. stories need continuity, development requires a prior buildup

it's especially important in multichapter fics where you post as you write, you need to have a more or less clear idea of what's going to happen because you can't ignore scenes you've already posted

shorter stories don't need it as much, you can think as you go, but it's still helpful to know where you're going with things to avoid getting stuck

and, on getting stuck: don't be afraid of deleting things. if you can't figure out how to continue things, then delete the situation and start again. it might feel like you'd be wasting time but in the end, it is so much better than being stuck on the same scene for weeks

in fact, you don't have to write in order. jump to the next scene and you'll figure it out later. you Can write the scene you want to write and then build everything else around it

it's normal to write a scene and then realize it would make more sense later in the story, or that it would be better if you added another scene earlier, or sometimes you just find it easier to jump from one part of the story to another. rely on your outline to keep track of what you've written, what you have left to write and what's the best way to arrange your story. make your story understandable

which bring us to editing

there's a lot of much better posts on editing stories, but yeah ctrl+f is your best friend: don't repeat yourself too much. and be sure to vary sentence and paragraph length, as well as sentence structure, to give dynamism to the writing

now, i've mentioned before the show, don't tell rule, but i'm going to talk a bit more about it because it's quite important

once again there's a lot of posts that explain more in depth what it is, so i'm not going to expand too much on that, but, very basically, try to avoid things like "then some time passed and they became friends". explain it: what happened exactly? how did they become friends? if it's important, show it to us, instead of summarizing

since things like these make the story longer, it also gives room for more development and proper explanation for things that happen

for example, the fic was originally going to start with them already in the room, and the whole situation would have been explained in a single paragraph somewhere, but by actually adding the scene where they first arrive to the dorms and argue with the lady at the main desk, the story flows better and it let me actually describe their first meeting

and uuuhhh i think that's all? this took super long to write i hope i didn't forget any super basic stuff lol

i want to add that for enemies to lovers i greatly recommend this post bc it's super good but yeah i think that's basically it, if you have any more specific questions just shoot me an ask

[bthump]

I like how Muria did everything in his power to prove that Griffith is not some kind of "evil heartless monster" antagonist type, but people end up misinterpreted him anyway. What a shame! Do you know why?

Yeah it’s really unfortunate bc he’s such an interesting complex character and I wish more people appreciated that. Tho I have a few ideas on why so many Berserk fans ignore most of the text and write Griffith off as evil from the start.

I mean obviously the biggest one is that Femto’s defining act of evil is rape. And tbh I put the blame pretty squrely on Miura for that one lol, like, I can’t actually blame anyone for being unable to feel sympathy for or enjoy the complexities of a character who later turns into a monster and rapes another major character.

Like the problem with using sexual assault as your major illustrative example of the ~darkness in the hearts of men~ or whatever is that it’s pretty damn common for people to have experienced it themselves, or know someone who has, and therefore reactions to a depiction of rape are inevitably a lot more visceral than reactions to say, murder or torture. Even if Griffith is depicted as a sympathetic, three dimensional, very interesting character throughout the Golden Age, I can’t blame anyone for not giving a fuck and just hating him anyway because his evil alter ego’s first act was rape. People ignoring your good writing is a price you pay as a creator for using rape as shock value and cheap drama.

(Plus when you add his badly written night with Charlotte to the mix, like, again, I can’t blame anyone for going “fuck this guy” and not caring about his depth of character. Like I don’t think the night with Charlotte is meant to be read as rape because there are zero indications that we’re supposed to think it’s skeevy or even potentially morally dubious once Charlotte gets into it - to me it reads like a badly written bodice-ripper type scene where the woman just has to get turned on and then she forgets propriety and enjoys herself - but again, that’s on Miura and his sometimes shitty writing.)

However, that said, from what I’ve seen the vast majority of Griffith haters still love Guts, who also sexually assaults the very same character (except Guts hadn’t even just been magically transformed first, and the first time he sexually assaulted her was long before the hound ever made an appearance), so like, when so many people condemn one character and excuse another for the same thing, there’s obviously something else at work.

So putting aside the rape, I think there are a lot of other factors as to why Griffith is so hated while very few of his haters extend that ire to Guts as well.

Like, for starters, Griffith is gay, or at the very least, gay coded and feminine in appearance and clearly in love with the protagonist, which definitely makes a lot of straight cis dude fans uncomfortable and a lot less likely to be able to empathize with him, judging by the offensive nicknames they tend to use for him.

But then there’s also just the way Griffith lies to himself, which, if you tend to take things at face value in a story, is going to give you a serious misunderstanding of his character. Eg, a lot of fans think that when he tells Casca he doesn’t feel guilty for the deaths of the people who follow him he’s being genuinely truthful and sociopathic lol, ignoring the fact that he’s self-harming grotesquely during that conversation, among other hints that he’s deluding himself. Lots of people take character dialogue as ultimate truth, missing other context clues that are often more revealing.

And then there’s the fact that he ends up betraying the protagonist and becoming an antagonist, and a lot of people just aren’t interested in moral grey stories so they project black and white values onto it. So since Griffith/Femto/NeoGriff is the antagonist, everything he’s done must have been evil and he must’ve been solely motivated by selfish desire for power, and they’ll twist the story to find support for that. Like I’ve seen people who take Griffith’s “I will choose the place that you die” as evidence that he’s been planning to sacrifice everyone for power from the very start lol, even though that makes zero sense, just because they need Griffith to have been villainous all along or the story doesn’t fit their moral framework.

Like, while Berserk takes a general moral stance that a person’s actions shape them, a lot of people believe that a person’s actions reveal their true, innate nature deep down. So, to them, Griffith sacrificing the Band isn’t an act that turns him into a monster, it’s an act that reveals he’s always been a monster and now the veneer of humanity has been removed. Yk, the kind of fans who say that if Griffith was a good person he wouldn’t’ve sacrificed his friends, because no good person would ever do that, as though Good and Evil are qualities a person is born with. Which I consider to be an extremely boring way of looking at fiction, and a troubling way of viewing morality, and totally at odds with what Miura’s attempting to say, but people will always bring their own philosophy to the table.

Similarly I think that, at least for some people, this is why Guts’ frankly evil actions get totally downplayed or written off - because he’s the protagonist so he has to be A Good Person. Therefore he had to have been possessed by an evil spirit when he assaulted Casca (despite the fact that the first time was in Godo’s spirit-repelling cave and most people forget that even happened, and the second time was in broad daylight without a ghost in sight or any visual indication that Guts was anything other than himself.) Or they say it’s okay because Guts stopped before actually penetrating her, and he’s had a hard life, and cut him a little slack and let him get back together with Casca bc he’s a good person and he deserves to be happy blah blah horrifying blah.

idk I’m definitely not accusing everyone who hates Griffith and flattens his character of being a hypocrite lol, like I said, there are plenty of possible reasons to view him as evil, and some are totally reasonable. But yk there is kind of a double standard at work when people love Guts and hate Griffith and I think it’s worth looking at why that might be.

[audreygallegoba2b]

Personal Branding - WIP

For this project, we were asked to have a web-based online portfolio, a CV and a showreel. During these last weeks, I have been working in all of these, starting from my website: https://albamingogallego.wixsite.com/hello

I used Wix as my website building platform cause I felt like it was the one which would help me get that clean look that I was going for much easier.

I actually started working on my website from the very first day that we hat the brief for this project as I was that excited about it. However, even though it went through tons of changes, I didn't keep track of almost anything of it. And, cause this is a website that is in constant evolution, I can't just open an older version and check out how was it looking. So, I will try to go through some of the processes here:

I began with this simple home/title:

I chose a picture from a character design from my first year that I like in look and colour. And decided to use my complete name ‘Alba Mingo Gallego’ rather than any other combination Alba Mingo (most used in Spain), Alba Gallego (plausible here) or Audrey Gallego (kinda artistic name that I started using a few years ago). I thought using my full name would work better in the UK as it would be more memorable/recognisable. Maybe someone wouldn't remember my full name, but they wouldn't forget that it was three non-English words together - idk perhaps?

I was also thinking about a catchy and nice tagline to have. I knew I wanted to mention that I was specialised in 2D as well as something colour related, however, I was also looking for a third thing to add maybe. 

Then I kept adding the sections I wanted for my website underneath, all together in one page, as I saw some people used this method before and I liked it. I also added a header that would redirect you faster to the selected section from the very top of the page.

Some inspirations that I had for that idea of having everything together on the same page flowing one thing to the next were websites such as:

http://rafaelpizzo.com

or http://corentin.strikingly.com

I included an About Me just after the title card, then my showreel + a playlist with my most recent work. I also added a header that contained some of my social media links and that later on would include a menu to the different sections.

If I remember correctly, after these sections, I included some digital images in a photo gallery that you could see scrolling side to side. Another one but for traditional work and finalised the strip with a brief representation of my Instagram account at the very end.

I was kind of digging this whole long, and flowy aesthetics, however many things were just not working out for me.

A few weeks later, after tons of little changes almost made daily, I got closer to what it is now and worked much better. I decided to separate the main sections and also worked out better the style of website that I wanted to have. I liked the cleanness of the constant white background that allows the work to pop up by itself. And so I had this sections in my header to go to:

Home

ALBA MINGO GALLEGO

Colour enthusiast.  2D Animator.

Image of an old character design

Reel & Film

Showreel and a playlist of all my audiovisual work altogether

recent projects section

three recent projects explained briefly with links to pages dedicated to them

Gallery

Digital work (mostly related to animation projects rather than illustrations and such)

Traditional art (actual drawings etc)

About

photo of moi

a small bio that was still a work in progress

an also work in progress CV - just some skills and education for now

Contact

the city where I am based

email

social media links

contact form 

Then the CV went out of the About page to have its own page. Also, I made a PDF version of it, which I am quite proud of for now - I will talk about it more in depth later.

I was every day coming back to my website and seeing that some things were not quite right just yet, and I could not work out what it was... until I did! I came across this website while doing my daily research:  http://alimacdoodle.com and really liked the menu that she used. All words with four letters. The clicked something in my brain and led me to almost the final look of my website - for now anyway.

I ditched my ‘home’ page as it was a bit useless. It was only giving the first impression and showing my name. However, my name was already on the header, and after that first impression, you were forced to go somewhere else as there was nothing to see there. Before entirely ditching it, I tried to add my Tumblr account at the bottom, but I did not like it after a few days of considering it. So I got rid of that.

I changed the name of the page were my reel was for ‘reel’ and later for just ‘work’ because of not only my showreel but my whole animation work was going to be in here. I figured out that cause I already had some hidden pages dedicated to some projects, in particular, I thought it would be a good idea to actually separate them all. I put the showreel at the top of the page and then the eight videos that I wanted to show. When you clicked on them, they would open on expand, while having on the left a bit of info about them. However, I had these three extra pages for those three more significant projects in particular. So, after working it out for a few days, I actually created a page for each one of the videos/projects that I wanted to show and linked each video to those. During my first tutorial with Mhairi, a classmate pointed out that it would be more fitting those links to be images rather than a video, cause when you clicked on them, they would not open a video on expanding anymore but a whole new page. And so I changed that too, which also got me working for a few days on a nicer cover for all of my videos. I updated them both on Vimeo and on my new website.

For my gallery, I decided to get rid of the digital bit as it was mainly style frames, character sheets, etc. for the projects that were on my work page. I put those images in the pages about their projects making them a bit more enjoyable too. And so only this page only my traditional work and life drawing were left, Mhairi helped me decided how to call it which ended up being ‘sketchbook’. This longer word broke the idea that the previously mentioned website inspired me of having this short words in the header. However, I do like the name for that section, and so I went for it anyways.

For my About and Contact page, I actually put them together as ‘Meet’, following the short-words idea. I put it so that if you click on it, you will go to my About Me page, but if you just hover, you would also get the choices: contact and CV. During one of the tutorials, it was also suggested to me to put the CV somewhere else, so I later on decided to include it at the end of my Bio text. We also discussed whether the contact page was too hidden there. However, the header that appears in every page contains both my email and my social media, so it should not be really a problem to find my contact even if someone is in a rush. I also added a Contact button along to the CV one after my bio.

My bio took weeks to write as I tried different approaches and saw what people thought about each one of them. I asked a few lecturers and got great feedback from them. In the end, my about me says:

Hello there! I'm a Norwich-based animation student.I'm currently in my second year of Animation at the Norwich University of the Arts, specialising in 2D Animation. I have always been a visual and crafty person. Since an early age, I have had a passion for the arts and I have been working for them to become my professional career. As they say, 'find a job you enjoy doing and you will never have to work a day in your life’ Before Animation, I studied Fine Arts for a couple of years while participating in a sculpture studio in the evenings. I was able to do some commission work that gave me some early experience in working with clients. I love learning about other cultures and exploring the world. I come from Zaragoza, Spain, where I did my Spanish Baccalaureate in Artsbefore coming to the UK.

Which I think that summarises well the topics I wanted to mention, gives a warm and somehow interesting feeling and does not feel like a cv 2.0.

I also decided to keep the photo I included there after checking on many people that it was ok and didn’t bring out weird reactions. People agreed on it being a professional photo, and so it was fitting.

The contact page stayed pretty much the same. While the CV got a complete change of style. I did my cv both on the website and in a downloadable PDF.

I included the same info in the same order. I will soon have to update the Ponyo project, both here and everywhere else on my website. Mhairi liked the layout and overall look of it. The only things that pointed out were that: in the printed cv, the first things that she would look at would be the software that I know and use; and something that would make her go ‘uuuhhh’ would be the languages. So she suggested me to put these two on top of the education even, rather than at the very end of the page however that might mess up the layout. I understood what she meant, but for now, I prefer it as it is. Another thing that she mentioned was the cv on the website was only black and white + some light grey. She suggested me to add some hits of colour or small drawings that connect it better with me and my work.

Then, I came back to my ‘work’ page and removed my showreel from there, I did a home page again and put it there along with my name again. I thought about the layout and colours of this front page for a long time and arrived at this last final version were my name is all in one line, the tagline is now ‘-    2D Animator & Colour Enthusiast    -’ and the showreel is in the middle and does not open in expand neither plays automatically.

As you can see, I also designed a nicer cover for my reel and actually updated it and changed it once more so that I am happy with it now:

I got rid of some bits that were bothering me since Christmas and went straight to the point. Now I am really proud of it!

For my home page, I had this idea of having a darker background rather than a white one cause I wanted to keep that clean and minimalistic look while not making it look too empty or boring. I choose specifically something dark so that it acts kind of like a cinema, the colours would pop up better against a black rather than a white background too. Though, I avoided using pure black.

What Mhari had to say about these decisions were that she liked it but that she had some prejudices about the colour choice particularly. She told me that not choosing a pure black is a good choice but that the grey that I went for looked out of a template and not like if I did all the mental process of deciding it etc. She suggested two ways of fixing these issues: to use this grey somewhere else on the website so that it would look more consistent and as a conscious choice. Or the one that she really encouraged me to do: to change the grey for a lighter one so that it would look less trendy and more like a personal and original choice. I personally thought about the first choice, and I still do. As for the second one... I chicken out cause I am scared to use an ugly grey tbh.

Now, the only thing it is left mentioning is the blog. I decided to include a blog on my website halfway through the making of my website, and since then everyone has been continuously asking me ‘are you sure about that????’. I decided to have a blog on my site because:

I think it’s a way of getting to know me better - pop in a post and read a couple of paragraphs 

It is a good practice for me to keep up to date with exciting topics about the animation industry, and it prepares me for future conversations where I can bring them out

It shows some consistency as well as activity on my website

And some other reasons - such as having the perfect excuse to go to film premieres more often

In a nutshell, I think a blog is fitting for me - cause as you can see I don't really mind typing and typing if I have to - and has some potential. The only downside is that if for some reason I stop being consistent and publishing there it would give an awful image, in which case I would hide that page until it is alive again.

I worked in my blogs for a few weeks now, and I wanted to do something else with it, and so I came up with this:

I decided to write every Saturday - or every two Saturday when very busy - and add an illustration of mine using iconography related to the subject and using the same four colours over and over for it. For now, I am digging the looks of it, and I have been able to keep up with it, so I am really excited and proud of it.

But yeah, I hope this can kind of make it up to not having posted more regularly all my progress etc. I tried to cover every relevant change that I made, but I am sure there were more than I could have mentioned if I did my daily blogs on this project too etc. This last term I had a really hard time organizing my work, my life and my mind. But I tried to do my best in every project, so I hope that can save me just for this time!