#my style is just built off a combined interest in a handful of anime boys plus shadow the hedgehog

[kurobachisagi]

i bought these shirts the other day bc they reminded me of mr lobster fan yoichi so i had to draw him wearing them

[obeymeluv]

Hey ^^ may I please request something? If you won't do it then that's totally fine but could you maybe write about how the demon brothers would react if MC got kidnapped and cannot summon any of them? If you don't have time to do it that's totally fine and remember to take care ^^

Quick rundown on my headcanons for bonding with demons:

When I read this, it made me question whether bonded brothers would instinctively know if their pact mate/bonded person was in trouble? Would they be able to tell if the bonded person was unconscious instead of just...contained? I’d like to think that when demons bond to the point of making pact marks, they can kind of “tap in” or “tune in” to the bonded one to make sure things are okay. When they do, they feel what their pact mate is going through. The longer they stay connected, the more they can share.

For example: a 5 minute connection can allow the bonded pair to say a few things mentally, and would allow the demon to fully tap into their bonded one’s emotions. The telepathic capabilities only work when the two are in eye-sight; the connection grows stronger as the demon moves towards the pact mate.

Basic and superficial wounds can be felt at this point. Pulse rates sync up at about three minutes. If the pact mate is unconscious, the demons can try to push their consciousness into being awake or opening their eyes to try and see through them to figure out where they are (before the conscious mind kicks in, about 5-10 seconds). This connection will also allow them to connect to other senses but the demons will be overloaded and experience them all at once. If their human is conscious and they tap into their senses again, they can filter out senses or enhance certain ones for a short amount of time.

Being connected 10 minutes or longer allows for deeper or graver injuries to be felt, and might help with reflexes. Humans may also take on key attributes of a demon, like sharper teeth or claw-like nails. Subtle changes like being slightly more charming (if pulling from Asmo) or stronger (if pulling from Beel) would start to occur. Using this too much may cause mental or physical pains.

The effects of being connected for thirty minutes or longer are largely undocumented (despite Devildom society being 5,000+ years old) but are assumed to be dangerous for the human (pass out from mental exhaustion, borrowed magic fatigue, numbness or trouble moving limbs if reflexes are enhanced, etc.) Humans like Solomon, who are magically inclined or gifted, will not be harmed or taxed as much as a non-magical human. Connected demons hardly have any drawbacks, save for being sore depending on the extent of their bond mate’s injury if they connect to the point of being able to feel them.

I added all of that because my brain had to know how the bros would find MC. Plus, I’m stuck in chapter 20/21 and think there needs to be more lore about pact bonds/capabilities.

I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze this in anywhere above, but if the demon wants to locate a missing pact mate, they will have an internal compass of sorts. It’s a really strong compulsion to go a certain direction no matter who or what is in front of them. Their bonded one will be at the end of that feeling, and it will intensify the closer they get to each other.

Now, how they’d react:

Lucifer

He’s super pissed, obviously. You’re in trouble and he can’t just teleport to you?! What the hell did you get yourself into?!

Also worried. Did you piss off some figure (witch, etc.) that has magic capabilities or is this just a situation where you, as a human, do not feel safe to summon them?

Lucifer has been alive for 5,000+ years and is one of the strongest in the Devildom. He will use the above-mentioned brain push to get you to open your eyes and look around. He needs an idea of where you’re at (he’ll apologize about your migraines later)

I headcanon that he’s good with directions and has a strong memory, so he’d probably be able to recognize your surroundings and find you personally

When he sets out to find you, he’s a one man army. A one-man wrecking crew of death.

Considers that your captors may be magic-proficient or have some sort of anti-demon items (why else would they be stupid enough to take you?) so he packs an old fashioned, heavy-ass sword or dagger in case hand-to-hand fighting isn’t an option.

Those gloves come off, and he rarely takes his gloves off. Lucifer will make sure your captors suffer a long, slow, painful death that illustrates why he’s a demon and why they should be afraid of him

He fought bare-handed. The dagger/sword wasn’t necessary.

Mammon

WHO JUST TOOK HIS HUMAN? WHY? GET FUCKIN’ READY, BUDDY!

Stuck in an angry panic spin of ‘HUMAN IS MISSING? WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I FIND HUMAN? GOD DAMMIT!’ until his brain kicks in

Doesn’t think to use the brain push thing. His first thought is: people will sell information

Mammon is the Avatar of Greed--he knows what people want and he knows how to manipulate them. He’s actually pretty slick in a ‘watch this hand, not this one’ kind of way

Also caught in the feels and will not hesitate to beat somebody up for that information.

If he feels asking around will waste time, he’ll teleport to one of his witch acquaintances and have them find you. It may cost him another favor, but it’s worth it. SOMETHING is keeping you from summoning him, so he has to find a way around it.

You’ll hear Mammon coming before you see him. He’ll be complaining the whole way--(”Making me come all the way out here to save you! What were you thinking?!”) but he’ll be kicking ass without breaking eye contact

Being the second-oldest of seven, he grew up fighting several brothers at once and learned how to wrestle in different ways. His reflexes are pretty on point. It’s a very efficient fighting style--hard hits or distance throws that give him time to pick multiple captors off individually

Unapologetic and threatening. Lots of demon noises

He’s pretty quiet and burnt out by the time he finds you. More of a relieved exhaustion than anything. Baby boy missed you and just wants to hold you.

A little paranoid for the next two weeks. You’re basically on lock down with your main man until he feels better about everything.

Levi

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME IN ANIME AND MANGA AND IT DOES NOT END WELL!

Spends a solid 5-10 minutes hyperventilating BECAUSE SO MUCH COULD HAPPEN!

Has something already happened to you? What have they done?! Will he get a ransom note? A spooky encrypted video email?

WHAT WOULD HENRY DO?

That ‘admiral of Hell’s Navy’ personality kicks in and after a mild panic, he’s all business. He WILL figure out a way to find you

 He’d use that “compass” connection I described. It goes well with his one-track mind/hyperfocus he tends to get.

This is one big ass-whoopin’ quest in the making and he’s fixing to get that achievement trophy

Levi’s more of a strategist than a tank. He’s basically banking on his demon form to help rip your captors to shred.

Were you held hostage by a decent-sized body of water that connects or is fed into by other bodies of water? He’ll be coming at your captors like a Sharpedo. You’re in the splash zone.

Has a very merciless and interesting fight style. It’s kind of cheating in that Levi’s biggest tactic is ‘don’t give anyone else room to fight’, but it works.

Be prepared to see his tail used in interesting ways. Boy has a built-in long-range weapon.

Whether it’s one person or a whole group of people, he may summon Lotan just because they pissed him off. You’ll be safe, of course.

Satan

Boy is big angry

YOU WERE STOLEN? HE CAN’T JUST GO TO YOU?

Satan just wants a nice, quiet, simple life with things that don’t make him angry. This makes him angry. There will be death.

Is very suspicious by nature, and an over-thinker, so he’s probably considered this would happen at one point. Actually already had a plan.

Would use a combination of the “compass” intuition and the brain push to see what you see. Instead of having you look at your surroundings, though, he wants you to look at people.

Does he recognize any of those fuckers? Who’s on his hit-list?

If there’s no immediate sense of a threat, he’s interrogating Asmo. Between the two of them, they WILL find the person/people who took you

There’s probably at least one book in his connection that works like the mirror from Beauty in the Beast where he just has to ask it about you and it will tell him.

When Satan comes in to rescue you, it’s all demon noises. He comes in terrifying and strong and leading with magic.

Probably smells like fire and blood. Is covered in the latter and basically none of it’s his.

Big fan of using his tail like a mace.

They get the horns (literally)

Asmo

Someone stole his precious darling?! Um, no. Not okay. THE FARTHEST THING FROM OKAY, ACTUALLY!

I feel like we don’t have a lot of character depth for Asmo. I’m hoping once I get un-stuck I’ll be pleasantly surprised with Asmo content. I can’t decide if he’d panic a bit or just go into straight, hardcore bitch mode.

The definition of “looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you”. Big dick energy. Big bitch energy.

 I feel like Asmo wouldn’t be super organized because this isn’t usually a kind of stressor he deals with. What he lacks in tactical thought, he makes up for in connections

Boy would probably find you fastest out of all the bros because he can make a few posts across Devilgram, get some celebrities to do the same, and SOMEONE would find you.

Would stay mentally connected with you for as long as your body could handle it, and would be very soothing. A panicked kind of soothing, like pouring his heart out to you and just gushing, but soothing

Like “Baby, I love you so much! I’ll find you soon, I promise! We can even beat these assholes together!” ❤︎

Usually hates getting his hair or nails dirty, but he might just break off a nail in someone’s eye. Or, you know, come find you in a nice-ass pair of heels just to shove one down someone’s throat (or up someone’s ass).

He may look dainty and gorgeous but DO NOT be fooled. This boy has SATAN for an older brother and BEEL for a younger brother. He knows how to throw down.

In general, he’s just a vicious little shit. Asmo knows how to fuck people up physically. He just doesn’t like doing it.

Depending on how many captors you have, Asmo will charm them into killing each other and just watch. It’s not the most satisfying thing, but there is SOME satisfaction to it

Couple snuggles and major pampering after you’re back with him (and you’ve been checked out by medical staff). Lots of kisses.

He cries and it’s very quiet and heart-felt.

Beel

The worst thing to happen in the history of ever. Literally.

In Beel’s world there are two things YOU DO NOT DO: 1) eat his food, 2) fuck with his family

It’s hard for him to think rationally because he’s just so stressed/angry that he’s stumbling around in his demon form and he’s ruining everything.

His full strength is on display and he’s leaving cracks in walls, scratching up things--just general, accidental destruction. He’s breaking things on accident and trying to write out plans on paper that rips up and it’s starting to wear on him to the point of being genuinely destructive

Beel feels first and thinks second, which makes this a lot harder

Uses the “compass” thing. Becomes demon juggernaut.

 Likes to fly and divebomb where possible, so someone’s getting knocked THE FUCK out

When he sees you, or gets to the end of that “compass” feeling, Beel’s football training kicks in and he just demolishes anyone that’s in his way.

People just get tossed around like rag dolls. He doesn’t check to make sure they’re down and out, just clears the way.

The type to try and hold you or touch you first. Then, if anyone’s still standing, he makes sure they get put down before going back to you.

Carries you all the way back, his wings buzzing and singing happily because you’re safe and everything’s okay

Once you’re back in the House of Lamentation his stomach goes off loudly. You guys have a big feast to celebrate.

Belphie

The list of things Belphie likes in this world: 1) Sleep, 2) Beel, 3) You. Do not mess with the things Belphie likes.

Is most pissed that one of his favorite people in the whole damn world have gone missing and can’t summon him. Is side-pissed that he’s losing so much sleep to come find you. It’s not your fault, but still

Someone will die, and only Belphie will have fun

Is sleepy enough that he doesn’t panic and awake enough to think

I headcanon that Belphie in particular has a special kind of brain push due to being the Avatar of Sloth and making people sleepy. When he pushes your brain, he can also pick through what’s at the forefront of your mind or your most recent conscious moments. It’s like being able to link up to dreams, just not limited to dreams.

 Periodically uses the telepathic link as a radar of sorts Uses it in conjunction with the “compass” instinct to make sure he’s going in the right direction. Using the telepathic link once he’s in the general area just helps him find you faster

Belphegor, like Satan, has a lot of reserved anger. It will be well-used.

I bet his tail works like a real whip. It’d be demeaning as hell to get hit with it and Belphie wants to see your captor suffer. The tail will be used

Imagine the last thing you see or feel is getting hit by a demon cow tail. He’d definitely do that.

No holds bar when it comes to fighting. Your captor(s) signed their death wish when they took you.

Mostly fatal bites and deep scratches. Probably some limb tearing or pulling things out that should be kept inside the body. May definitely get a few nut shots with the tail if you have any male captors (you know, just because).

He doesn’t show up as bloody as Satan would, but there’s definitely blood on his face and under his fingernails.

Carries you out of wherever you’d been held. Gives you firm instructions not to look at anything. Just kind of gently pressed you into his chest before readjusting you and carrying out.

I hope you liked it :D

[virtual-lara]

Irish Times - Cyberbabe Gets Real

Article appeared on the Irish Times website, dated to 23rd June 2001, and was written by Steven Poole, author of 'Trigger Happy: The Inner Life of Videogames'. Article features a look into the history of Lara and what she is as a character.

It's Valentine's Day, 1968. In a hospital in the south London neighbourhood of Wimbledon, a daughter is born to Lord and Lady Henshingly-Croft. The girl has a drawerful of silver spoons in her mouth. Between the ages of three and 11, she is privately tutored at home; she then attends Wimbledon High School for Girls and Gordonstoun.

At the latter, she discovers a passion for rock climbing in the mountains of Scotland. (She also takes up shooting, but is soon banned for showing "too keen an interest".) By the time she is 18, everyone can see she has a wild streak, but her parents believe she can be thoroughly civilised - and eventually married off to the Earl of Farringdon - after three years at a Swiss finishing school.

While in Switzerland, however, the young woman takes to extreme skiing and spends a holiday pursuing the sport in the Himalayas.

On the return journey, her plane crashes deep in the mountains, and she is the only passenger left alive. Somehow she survives and, two weeks later, staggers into a mountain village. By this time, the course of her life has changed. She feels truly alive only when travelling alone. Lara Croft has decided to become an adventurer.

Or you could look at it this way: Lara Croft was born on the screen of a computer in an English video-game studio in 1995. First, she was a pencil sketch on paper, then a series of more detailed illustrations. Next, her vital statistics were plotted on a VDU screen. Thousands of triangles meshed together to build a computerised outline of a female form.

At this stage, Lara would have looked like a sculpture in chicken wire. Then the figure was "skinned" - wrapped in shaded, coloured surfaces to approximate a clothed human being. Lastly, she was animated: taught to walk, somersault, run and pull herself up on rocky ledges. Virtual worlds were also built around her to test her physical abilities to the limit.

Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider franchise are the products of Core Design - the game-development studio where Lara was born - and Eidos Interactive, its British parent. The man who fathered her was an artist in his early 20s called Toby Gard.

"When I came up with the idea for Tomb Raider," he says, "it wasn't necessarily going to be a female character. We wanted a real-time cinematic game, and I designed a couple of characters; one was a girl, one was a bloke. Eventually, we realised there was going to be a lot of story element in the game and we couldn't keep both the characters, so it was back down to one." So which should they choose? At the time, a female lead in a game was almost unheard of, Gard says. "There was resistance from marketing quarters, saying that female characters never sold."

Eventually, Core chose Lara as a refreshing antidote to the muscled meatheads that usually populated video games. And boy, did she sell: 26 million units, and counting, earning about $1 billion gross in retail sales.

Having turned her back on the upper-class society of her parents, who terminated her monthly allowance in disgust, Lara metamorphosed into a modern-day Indiana Jones.

For her first commission as a professional tomb raider, she was hired to retrieve the three parts of a mysterious artefact known as the Atlantean Scion. Hurtling through Peru, Rome and the lost city of Atlantis (well, it wasn't lost any more), Lara negotiated booby traps and shot a variety of wildlife, including rats, tigers and, alarmingly, a tyrannosaur.

In later quests, she travelled to Venice, Tibet and the Great Wall of China, snuck around the US military institute Area 51 and battled goons in the London Underground. Along the way, Lara was constantly learning. On the trail of a weird dagger that could turn you into a dragon, Lara discovered that she could climb walls, flip through 180 degrees while jumping or swimming, and wade into shallow pools of water.

By the time of her next adventure she could even get down on her hands and knees - in order to negotiate low tunnels and ventilation ducts - as well as monkey-swing from walkways and run much faster than she ever had. She could even blink. The programmers at Core extended Lara's capabilities with each new game, exploiting the fact that she had become a star.

Every year, another sequel popped up just before Christmas and went straight to the top of the video-game charts. Meanwhile, Eidos, Lara's parent company, was becoming a stock-market darling. In 1998, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, named the British firm the world's fastest-growing company, and in the summer of 1999 Eidos's share price was trading at a delirious high of $18.20.

Lara Croft, we must note, has brains as well as beauty. She is said by her biographers to have penned several travel books, including A Tyrannosaurus Is Jawing At My Head and the follow-up, Slaying Bigfoot. But she clearly does not read the newspapers or watch television, for in none of her adventures do we see any awareness on Lara's part that she has become an international media darling.

The first wave of Lara coverage came shortly after the game's 1996 release, with David James, the Liverpool goalkeeper, explaining to the London Times that he was playing badly because he had been staying up late playing Tomb Raider. In 1997, U2 used specially commissioned digital footage of Lara in action on their Popmart tour.

Lara appeared in comics, and plastic action figures of Lara sold like hot cakes. The original game had appeared on both the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation consoles, but Sony soon signed an exclusivity deal that meant episodes two and three would appear only on PlayStation.

Then came the acme of media acceptance: Lara on the cover of the Face in June 1997. Not only was this the first time the style magazine had used a digital person on its cover, it was the first time it had allowed an image to interrupt its red masthead. Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Time soon followed suit, and a video for the German pop outfit Die Artze, featuring Lara fighting with members of the band, went heavy-rotation on MTV.

Marks & Spencer produced a range of Tomb Raider III merchandise. Douglas Coupland, the writer of Generation X, contributed to a fey devotional tome entitled Lara's Book. In November, 1998, Tomb Raider and its first sequel were awarded Millennium Product status by the British Design Council.

In 1999, Lara - or rather Core Design, won a BAFTA for her "outstanding contribution to the interactive industry". In 2000, filming began in England on the imminent Tomb Raider feature film, budgeted at $100 million and starring Angelina Jolie. You can now, if you wish, clothe your children in nattily miniature Tomb Raider threads.

Perhaps the cleverest marketing coup was the association, begun in 1999, between Lara Croft and Lucozade, the orange liquid that used to be thought of as medicine for the sick but reinvented itself through the 1990s as a sports drink.

The latest advert has Lara pausing for a friendly Lucozade with her enemies while the player's back is turned. This summer, in order to tie in with the feature film's release, Lucozade will be labelled "Larazade".

They probably call this "synergy", but it works because Lucozade is a product one can imagine Lara using, even if it is unclear where she might find a bottle in a dusty tomb. Jeremy Heath-Smith, the managing director of Core Design and head of global development at Eidos - who, despite Eidos's financial difficulties, was last year paid $3.5 million thanks to a long-standing royalty agreement - says: "The fact that it's a health-giving energy drink matched Lara's profile exactly. I'm not sure Irn-Bru could have the same effect, as nice as Irn-Bru is."

Lara is careful about who she's seen with, for obvious reasons. We can be confident that she would never endorse fruit-flavoured alco-pops, or depilatory creams. But the Lucozade partnership is a marvel of mutual reinforcement: association with Tomb Raider and Lara helps to sell Lucozade.

In his novel Idoru, cyberpunk writer William Gibson imagines Rei Toei, a Japanese-engineered virtual celebrity who rebels against her makers and plots to find herself a physical body. In fact, the Japanese did have a virtual media star in 1997. Software programmers collaborating with Japan's leading modelling agency, Horipro, created Kyoko Date, the world's first digital pop singer. But sales of her debut CD did not live up to expectations. Why? Her face was a combination of features mapped from photographs of famous models; her singing voice was taken from one woman, her speaking voice from another; and her dance moves were digitised from the performances of real dancers. She was far more detailed and "realistic" than Lara Croft was at the time - but in a sense, Kyoko Date looked too real.

Our idoru does not fall into this trap. Lara Croft is attractive because of, not despite, her glossy blankness - that hyper-perfect, shiny computer look. She is an abstraction, an animated conglomeration of sexual and attitudinal signs - breasts, hot pants, shades, thigh holsters - whose blankness encourages the viewer's psychological projection.

Beyond the bare facts of her biography, her perfect vacuity means we can make Lara Croft into whoever we want her to be. If the computer-generated Lara Croft ever became too photo-realistic, too much like an individual woman, says Heath-Smith, "you'd lose some of that feel for her". The plans to finesse the character design for the next-generation Tomb Raider game, coming to Sony's far more visually powerful PlayStation2 some time next year, are "to smooth her off without changing the aesthetics that work".

But will these aesthetics be influenced by the performance of Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider film? Lara's creator, Toby Gard, rather approves of the casting. "Yeah, Angelina Jolie certainly looks the part," he says. "She has that certain wild quality which is important - that's what I had in mind." Jolie, we are told, performed most of her stunts; emulating the acrobatic, gravity-defying grace of her digital counterpart in the unforgiving real world resulted in injuries to her knee and shoulder and torn ligaments in her foot.

Bear in mind Lara has already been impersonated by several flesh-and-blood women without danger to her virtual hegemony - the models and actresses Rhona Mitra, Nell McAndrew, Lara Weller, Lucy Clarkson and Vanessa Demouy have all stepped into the boots for promotional appearances. Lara Croft, the virtual character, is the Platonic ideal: a human actress can give a better or worse account of that ideal, but she can never embody it fully, still less outstrip it. In that sense Lara is more like a creature of time-fogged legend than a contemporary "personality".

The rise to ubiquity of Lara Croft came as a surprise to her digital dad. "I never expected to have that happen," Gard says. "You know, as a designer, I'd gone through my life making sketches for these characters, and you think they're yours - then you realise they're not yours at all."

It was the massive success of Lara, in fact, that prompted Gard to leave Core Design and set up his own company, Confounding Factor, before the second Tomb Raider game appeared. "Other people were just doing things with her I didn't agree with," he says, guardedly.

He is working on Galleon, a game he promises "will have the same effect as Tomb Raider had in terms of how far ahead of everything else it's going to be".

It will be interesting to observe how Lara Croft ages. If the franchise is still going in 2020, will she be raiding tombs at the age of 42? There seems no reason why not. What allowed Lara's extraordinary success, after all, was the fact that Gard had created not a singular female character but a new archetype: an image so fluid and malleable that she can cross media barriers without appearing to whore herself.

Odd as it may seem, Lara has never been a primarily sexual being. In the immature world of video games, Lara was a revelation. In contrast to the standard near-pornographic portrayal of helpless women characters, Lara was a Germaine Greer of video games. Sure, she showed some skin, but her wardrobe was practical, rock-climbing, tomb-raiding stuff: shorts, hiking boots, vest, backpack. Gard says this was a deliberate reaction to the digital representations of women around him at the time, which persist today: spangly thongs, S&M corsets, strange spirally metal bras.

"I wanted to make sure it wasn't the thigh-length boot-style stuff," he says. "You can't get emotionally involved with a character like that because it has been objectified. Lara, I felt, had more dignity." It wouldn't make any sense, you understand, to describe the dignified Lara as a sex symbol.

Because "sex symbol", if that overused phrase means anything at all, must mean a person with whom you can imagine having sex - however improbable that may be. Angelina Jolie may be a sex symbol. But Lara can't be. It is in principle impossible to have sex with Lara Croft: she is always and forever unattainable.

And, as we have seen, there are far more overtly sexual depictions of women in video games. So all the prurient fans' artwork - the notorious "Nude Raider" images created by boys disturbingly skilled in computer-aided imaging and posted on the net, and all the leering over Croft's breasts in the chat rooms - these are incidental, a predictably perverse subculture of the fan base, not its raison d'etre.

It seems probable that men who like Lara don't want to have her; they want to be her. That's why they play the game. Lara is a symbol, if anything, of aspirational gender reassignment. In both directions. Men who like trying on a female persona, or women, such as Jolie, who like doing what is usually thought to be men's stuff. To paraphrase Damon Albarn of Blur, Lara works for boys who do girls, or boys who like girls who do boys, or girls who do boys.

And perhaps it is this all-things-to-all-people, don't-you-dare-try-to-pin-me-down quality that has ensured her longevity. For it is axiomatic that the jumping, rolling, sprinting Lara Croft is physically inexhaustible. What is surprising is that over the five years of her career so far, she has also proven inexhaustible as an icon.

All rights belong to Irish Times and/or their affiliated companies. I only intend to introduce people to old articles and preserve them before they are lost.

[entamewitchlulu]

Lulu’s Flash Reviews [Winter 2020]

Been a while since I posted one of these! I posted these to my twitter earlier but I figured I could put them here too.  And if you will excuse the plug, consider checking out my side Twitter I use specifically for livetweeting anime, @/LulusLivetweets!

And w/o further ado, I have some thoughts about anime under the cut!

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Eizouken was an absolutely INCREDIBLE little show. I hadn't initially planned on watching it, but I'm so glad I did. The main cast is so strong and their personalities mesh and bounce into perfect, hilarious dynamics - and the core themes about creativity and how to make anime wrt all the work that REALLY goes into it were so much fun to watch play out. Everytime Kanamori went off on her own plans, I was hooked! Everytime Asakusa and Mizusaki started playing some imagination game, I got emotional, because that was me in high school! 

And of course, the animation was spot on; the way you watched them physically build their "greatest world" through sketchy environments and voice acted sound effects, it was immersive and inspiring. An instant classic imo!   

Overall: 10/10

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun was one that was on my radar from the beginning due to the voice talent of Megumi Ogata playing the titular character. But her excellent va work wasn't the only awesome thing about it! the animation was absolutely gorgeous, using a very unique style visually and cinematically. i really loved the way they decided to design each episode's mood and tone and the creative framing techniques. the characters were all quite fun, complex, and endearing, and there was just enough mystery to really keep you hooked. and i'm a sucker for that rumors-create-reality plot! the only minus i can give this is that Nene's obsession with boys started to wear on me lol

Overall: 9/10

Asteroid in Love

A slow-paced slice of life, but still overall enjoyable! There was little substance and any time it edged on real conflict it hurriedly pulled back, but that was ok because we all knew we were here for cute girls being cute without any more depth.  The relationship between Ao and Mira was sweet and lovely, and the quirks of the other characters never became so overwhelming that it got annoying, even the tsundere-types. And I learned a little bit about space! Bonus points! overall, it was a sweet and welcome escape to simply slip into a story without conflict, where you could simply sit back and smile as you watched these sweet girls pursue their deeply held dreams, no matter what might stand in their way.

Overall: 7/10

In/Spectre

For my thoughts on In/Spectre....well...I finished it? There are elements to this series that I found interesting enough to continue til the end. This one also taps into the Rumors-Become-Reality trope that I love, but unlike Hanako-kun it...leaves character to the wayside. The animation is pretty solid, sound design is good, character designs are pretty decent if a little unmemorable, but...for most of this show it's talking heads. They talk in circles and weave stories in a way that just...doesn't do the visual medium justice.

and the characters are just...boring. I never bought into what was meant to be the main romantic subplot. Iwanaga is extremely annoying when she's not devising Sherlock-esque concepts. rather than develop the characters and their relationships, they devoted 90% of screentime to watching Iwanaga come up with ridiculous fictions in Sherlock-esque fashions, as though just to show off how clever the show is rather than let me become invested in the characters. if there's ever a season 2, i don't think i have the emotional investment to look into it.

Overall: 6/10

Natsunagu

Natsunagu isn't really a traditional anime per say, it's a series of shorts developed for a revitalization effort after the Kumamoto earthquake, I believe. Each episode is only 3 minutes long, so the story isn't particularly fleshed out, but for what it was, it was rather sweet. The story of a girl trying to find her online friend after their usual message service is shut down and meeting the people of a place still in recovery was I think written with exactly as much sensitivity as it needed to for the story and the people it was telling it for.

Overall: 6/10

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record

Magia Record blew every expectation I had out of the fucking water. It was absolutely fucking incredible. Building expertly off of the foundation laid by the original Madoka, in some respects it absolutely overshadowed it. The aesthetic and atmosphere hit every fucking note perfectly. Without having to worry about building up uncertainty the way the original did, MR was able to barrel straight into the uncanny valley, where you already know that something is wrong but you have no idea how MUCH.

yet another Rumor-Creates-Reality show (seriously this is a theme here), the Rumors on display here are markedly more hostile, and built with all of the eerie charm of Madoka's signature surreality. Characters are not left to the wayside, either. For the number of cast members they introduce and the old ones they bring back, it somehow manages to balance all of them, give most of them arcs and depth, and invest you into all of them in a very short span of time.

I'm still shivering with just how intense every bit of it was. I want to rewatch it already. I'm already pounding my fists on the table for season 2! The original Madoka was and still is a favorite of mine, but this spin off avoided every pitfall I could have thought of creating something that both wove intricately into its source material while creating something brand new at the same time. Even knowing that these events will retroactively be undone with the events of Madoka, I still care immensely, and that's a major feat. cannot wait for s2!

overall: 10/10

And before I sign off on this, I also wanted to share my own personal awards for Winter 2020′s season!

Best Girl

4. Iroha Tamaki (Magia Record)

3. Hinata Hiramitsu (Healin’ Good Precure)

2. Midori Asakusa (Eizouken)

1. Sayaka Kanamori (Eizouken)

For Best Girl, the ultimate award goes toooo.....Kanamori from Eizouken! An atypical character in both personality and design, she is always an immense amount of fun every time she's on screen. Honorable mentions go to Asakusa, Hinata, and Iroha!

Best Boy

2. Daruizen (Healin’ Good Precure)

1. Hanako-kun (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)

For Best Boy of Winter 2020, the award goes toooo.....Hanako-kun! Simultaneously a little shit AND in need of a hug, Hanako balances that shitlord side of himself with his moments of vulnerability in a super endearing way. Honorable mention to Daruizen because I'm me.

Best Couple

3. Iroha/Nanami (Magia Record)

2. Hanako/Nene (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)

1. Mira/Ao (Asteroid in Love)

the award for Best Couple goes tooo....Mira/Ao! This sweet pair not only have devoted their lives to their shared dream, but they've also moved in together, spent long nights stargazing, and chased each other across the country! Honorable mentions to Iroha/Yachiyo and Hanako/Nene

Best OP: Easy Breezy by Chelmico (Eizouken)

This OP is just so much fun to watch, and the song is fun to listen to on its own!

Best ED: Aletheia by ClariS (Magia Record)

Best ED goes tooo....Aletheia by ClariS!  It's beautifully animated, and one of the few EDs I actually liked listening to all the way through the end. Plus, ClariS is always good!

Best Music: Magia Record

Best Music Award goes to Magia Record! Yuki Kajiura is ALWAYS a treat to listen to, as always.  And a secondary mention to Healin Good! The theme that plays during the main attack is really good and reminds me of You Say Run a little.

Best Animation: Magia Record

Best Animation also goes to Magia Record! Madoka properties really know how to meld unique styles of animation, and to get the most out of every frame. A special shoutout to the design of Hanako-kun and the creativity of Eizouken, though!

Best Overall:

And finally, for Best Overall...I actually have to give it a tie;;;; Eizouken + Magia Record were both incredible , for extremely different reasons - but their combined unique animation styles, attention to aesthetic/theme, and overall stellar performance were a joy this season!

And that’s enough of me talking! Looking forward to Spring 2020′s season, lot of good stuff coming up!  Did anyone watch anything this season that I didn’t talk about that you highly recommend?

[vanilla-blessing]

qb anime of the year list 2018

Anime of the Year 2018 - the year of girls going to aquariums together

I’ve seen at least one person who claimed that 2018 was the best year for anime in recent memory and I’m inclined to agree. A large majority of my top ten list is shows that I would consider perfect and even shows that blew away what I thought was possible in the medium. It was a revolutionary year and makes a strong argument that anime wasn’t a mistake after all. - qb

#1

Hugtto! Precure blew away my expectations every week for close to a year. I don’t exactly know what to say about it here, since this isn’t the last time I’ll talk about it for sure. It doesn’t even end in 2018, but it was such a huge part of my 2018 in anime that it would be inaccurate to not include it. The only way I can think to explain Hugtto! Precure is to talk about the Netflix She-ra reboot. She-ra’s a pretty basic modern Dreamworks cartoon, with some interesting ideas thrown in and likable characters, but mostly held back by what they could realistically allot for production. Because of this limitation, She-ra goes hard on a single perfect episode (if you’ve seen it, you know which one) that stands out in a big way and shows the full potential of what they set out to make. Usually, Precure is lucky to get a handful of these stand-out episodes in a season, and most of the time just gets by, due to being an annual series that can never, ever take a break. Normally, the first few episodes of a Precure season can be counted on to be strong, but the realities of anime production being hella tough inevitably catch up.

Hugtto! Precure started with an incredible opening arc, then never let off the gas pedal. Nearly every episode of Hugtto is a stand-out, never-before-seen, innovative tour-de-force. The combination of production miracles that resulted in Hugtto has been talked about by me on this blog before, (http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/176000267859/hana-is-getting-unstable-a-pink-precure) but the length of time that Hugtto stayed in the paint, going extremely hard every single week with few exceptions, was just absurd. Every season of Precure has one or two peaks, sometimes a good season gets lucky and has even more, the best seasons bat a solid average, but are still expected to be held back by reality. Coming out of the fifteenth season of Precure with a majority of the best episodes in the entire franchise isn’t something that I can wrap my head around, but it definitely happened, mostly in 2018. It’s simultaneously a love letter to the franchise’s past, present, and future made by the biggest Precure fans on the planet, and it’s unquestionably the best season. Hugtto threw what we all knew was true and had accepted about Precure clear out the window, retroactively made older seasons better, watered my crops, brought world peace, ect.

Oh yeah and boys can be cures now. 

#2

I’m definitely not done with Revue Starlight and this won’t be the last time I talk about it. Revue Starlight essentially carried the Summer 2018 anime season on its back. Starlight absolutely dominated my anime watching schedule; my week was seriously just waiting for and watching different translations and releases with every other show being almost incidental, far less important than waiting for the song lyrics to get translated for an episode I had seen three times already. I won’t get into everything here, since I’ve already talked about it on this blog after all (http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/179023723689/subtext-is-for-cowards-revue-starlight), but I need to reiterate that it was such a commanding, unique, stylized experience and didn’t drop a single episode in its entire absurdly high-level production. The only reasonable explanation for this is devil magic, and hell, it was worth it. Revue Starlight is probably in my top 5 anime of all time and I wouldn’t get this list out if I said everything I wanted to say about it. It’s great. Watch it twenty times. 

#3

Pop Teen Epic, or Hoshiiro Girldrop, was the most wildcard that has ever been in seasonal anime, and could have been absolutely anything. What none of us predicted was just how much of anything this show would be, encompassing an unprecedented range of artists, voice acting talent, and whatever AC-bu are, each giving their very individual takes on a self-described shitpost comic strip, sometimes covering the exact same material two or three times, with no regard for any sort of cohesion or structure.

Nothing about this idea should have been funded, nothing in Pop Team Epic has any reason to work, and as a straight adaptation probably wouldn’t have worked. PTE spun gold from trash through the raw effort of artists doing their own thing, which captures the original spirit that made the formerly-cancelled comic popular in a way that’s much too intelligent for haters to understand. Also it got a dub, which is the most ridiculously bad idea i’ve heard in my life, and it owns that it happened.

#4

Spider-man into the Spider-verse is legit the best comic book movie ever made. It’s a fun, expressive twist on the most tired superhero origin story of all time, and showcases some of the most sssssssssstyle and raw, real emotion I’ve ever seen in animation. Its particular selection of influences is brilliant and poignant, rising far above the simple fanservice you’ve come to expect from Spider-man. The unrelenting individualistic spirit of this movie will stick with you the longest in the soundtrack, bravely incorporating a side of pop music that you don’t usually get to see in big-budget productions, pulling soundcloud rappers out of their grody (i’m told) dens into the spotlight with equal importance alongside the heroic score. Spider-verse is all about establishing your own unique flavor, and it manages to overwrite every other entry in this cursed franchise with its bold taste.

#5

It doesn’t make sense to me how amazing Aggretsuko’s dub is. The impeccable timing of each line, the perfect integration with the comedy, and the optimal length of the episodes are all far beyond what I expected from a Netflix show. It not only converted the original series of shorts that I already had on my top 10 the first year into a godlike longer series I didn’t know I wanted, but went to the effort to bring real metal singers in for the karaoke. Honestly just repeat everything I said in my 2016 list and multiply it by five. I hope they make more. They’re making more.

#6

I was pretty slow to pick up anime in the Winter 2018 season, but I never missed Hakumei and Mikochi, maybe because it was like, the only simulcast on my favorite online anime streaming subscription service HiDiVE. The subs weren’t great, and it certainly wasn’t all that popular, but it was just the relaxing show I needed. Hakumei and Mikochi brought me back to my favorite non-racist parts of the Redwall series of books: friendly animals, delicious foods, alcohol, and rustic songs. I was ready to put it on my list for simply being a cute healing foodie anime, but to my surprise, it had much more in store within its tiny world: stark confrontations with mortality, a shy riverside necromancer, the inexplicable remake of The Raid: Redemption in miniature, fashion trends, frogs, carpenter weasels, carpenter skeletons, ghost celebrations, a country beetle with lofty dreams. The list of memorable people, places, and things contained in the gnomish roommates’ tiny world goes on and on.

Masaomi Ando’s directing went completely along with the storybook aesthetic, maybe even to an overall detriment, which is exactly the kind of reckless commitment to style I love to see. The distinctive paneling, constantly gorgeous backgrounds, and deliberate pacing perfectly captured the imaginative stories I loved to read as a kid, but with more alcohol, and more sophisticated themes under the surface. Even something anime rarely get right, endings, were perfectly capstoned every week with a short digest that explored more of the history, legends, and very personal lore of their small, unique world. At its core, Hakumei and Mikochi is the calming story of tiny roommates you think it is, but it’s also so much more. They have day jobs and get drunk and remodel their house after it explodes that one time. They gamble dangerously to escape a blizzard, help a photographer give herself a little credit, and rescue their neighbor from a fancy grave of her own making. By the end of the show Hakumei practically built half a town. The collective stories from their everyday adventures build into something tremendous, and it all wraps up on the most perfect ending sequence I could have hoped for, which calls back to every story thus far as a new verse of the show’s central duet is sung. In any reasonable AnimeOTY Hakumei and Mikochi would be my top anime of 2018, but this year, the competition was unreasonable. This show will just have to settle for being the best regular anime of the year.

#7

Bloom Into You is an incredible adaptation of an apparently yuri romance manga that raises the bar for anime adaptations in general. I don’t know when, but somewhere along the line I stopped expecting that serious capital R Romance anime would have a distinctive style, and gave up to the notion that there was no demand anymore and a stylized, seinen/josei romance would just never get made. Well that was 2016 and then Scum’s Wish happened which this blog has covered extensively.(http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/168842023559/how-lerche-adapted-an-average-trashy-romcom-into, http://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/168789506264/scums-wish-and-our-messy-uncomfortable) To me Bloom Into You feels similar in concept, as a difficult romantic situation with no easy answers or completely happy people. The main perspective character, Yuu, is among my favorite romantic leads in any series; she doesn’t get romantic feelings, although she wants to, and despite being easily motivated, is kind of dispassionate. Her relationship that she was pushed into with Touko might as well be out of mutual convenience, since Touko doesn’t want to fall in love with someone who would love her back, and Yuu doesn’t think she can.

Yuu filters the developments of the series as they grow closer through a very different perspective compared to more emotional leads of usual romance stories, methodically breaking down and considering where she’s at, observing where others are at, before taking an action that makes sense to her. Her growth through the series takes a very different direction than the common dramatic formula; instead of running headfirst into misunderstandings to overcome romantic challenges, she’s compelled to take a step back and position herself in a way that allows her to understand and confront her girlfriend’s issues. The changes that she experiences herself during this process are extremely gradual, but are no less significant to her. Although the dramatic weight of the series is obviously all about Touko, the central thesis of Bloom Into You is to explore Yuu’s complex feelings, and ask to what degree our actions are dictated by our emotions. It’s a heavy topic to be sure, but what makes this anime adaptation special in particular is how the directing and production pull it off, to maybe an even stronger degree than the original material.

Bloom Into You’s most striking and noticeable feature is the incredible conservation of small movements that connect expressions naturally. Minute changes in characters’ faces are vital to observe the almost imperceptible changes in Yuu over the course of the series, and every aspect of the direction is in service of highlighting these subtle moments. In addition, repeated cinematic themes are reinforced over the show’s run, such as the use of light to impart a blinding realization, flower language to inform deeper personalities, even using a literal (not literal) cinema. Symbols such as trains, masks, and mirrors are used constantly and consistently to reinforce the show’s themes, which should be immediately obvious from the opening animation. I’m still kind of stunned that Bloom Into You’s ending theme is such a banger and managed to use an oscillating sine curve in a metaphorical way. These details might be lost without the brilliant layouts, intentionally resembling a stage, which always push the minute differences front and center. As an anime adaptation, Bloom Into You adds so much value in such a subdued, conservative way that it puts uninspired adaptations to shame.

#8 

Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 rounded out the year with a good old new-fashioned Japanese-speaking Chinese-Wuxia Taiwanese puppet show. The novelty of this wild series, like, existing at all, is still incredible to me, but I was really wowed by the new characters and the direction the series went in after the already high standards of the first season. Following the outrageous action and fights of the previous season, I did not expect that season 2’s introductory goon would 1. Live past the first episode 2. So quickly become my favorite swordfighter and 3. Have inarguably the most complete character arc of the entire show thus far. The Princess of Cruelty’s struggle against her inner and outer demons in a unreasonably stacked, desperate situation developed her into easily the most compelling character of the season, and the rest of the cast including a corrupt police officer with extremely disconcerting and bad puppet teeth, a ventriloquist rock-lutist, and a nihilist monk each bring their own unique flavors to the table. The table that they throw the puppets in the air from to make the show. All of the new elements of Thunderbolt Fantasy 2 improved an already strong formula even more, and revealed an emotional depth to the series that I’m excited to see developed further. Some people might not call this anime, but those people haven’t seen Thunderbolt Fantasy for longer than 2 seconds. It’s so anime.

#9

I blasted all available seasons of Star vs the Forces of Evil early in 2018, and it was basically my first foray into straight-up American cartoon magical girl, despite watching all the Japanese ones, which was probably an oversight on my part. That’s because Star Versus is really good, and provided a flavor of magical girl I had been missing out on. I could talk about the excellent sparkle witch aesthetic of the show, fluid animation, and hilarious comedy, but I’d rather spend this blogspace posting Star Butterfly faces. 

#10

A Place Further Than the Universe, or YoriMoi, or my preferred moniker That Antartica Anime, wasn’t on my radar until well after it had finished airing, but it stuck with me for most of the year. Although it’s definitely melodramatic at times, it utilizes this tendency in exactly the right way to enhance the individual characters’ emotional arcs. Even though I was personally sort of taken out of it for many of the girls’ personal trials, :penguin emoji: is obviously thoughtfully written and carefully constructed, and especially knows how to orchestrate an immense emotional reaction with pitch-perfect timing. If there’s one particular aspect this anime has absolute mastery over, it’s hitting that perfect note and cue to create a memorable narrative climax. And for all my bellyaching about not fully relating to some of the characters, Miyake is definitively the #1 qb-relatable character of the year.

Here’s the rest of my list. Don’t @ me about it because if its not on my top ten then it doesnt really count anymore i dont make the rules thats just how it is

11. Yuru Camp

12. Hisone and Masotan

13. Asagao to Kase-san

14. Devilman Crybaby

15. After the Rain

16. Planet With

- friend of the show @queuebae on twitter 

That’s why the 2018 anime of the year award goes to Kaiju Girls 2.

[aprilrichardson]

I Know It’s Over

There are people to whom music doesn't matter. I often envy these people. My mom is one of them -- she's not really concerned with music, poetry, movies, or anything in popular culture. She considers herself a whole, satisfied person without these things in her life, free from any aesthetic crutches. I am not one of those people. I needed music. I need music. From a very early age, I needed music to tell me I was okay. I needed it to tell me I was normal, I needed it to tell me I was weird, I needed it to confirm that I'd be fine either way. I needed it in a dramatic way. I needed it in a mundane way, playing all the time in the background like wallpaper with a pattern you've stopped noticing. I needed to identify with it, I needed it to make me feel complicated emotions I'd never felt before; it could comfort me or repulse me, soothe me or force me to look outward, echo my own sentiments or expand my mind to fit new ones. Music (and the bands/people who made it) served as my mentor, my older sibling, my voice of reason and, at times, bad influence. When you're an only child from a fractured family, you spend a lot of time in your room. Your hobbies can become your closest friends. Music became my savior and my most time-consuming, all-encompassing, money-draining pursuit. My savings account would be at least triple its current amount had I not been so obsessed with seeing bands and collecting their records. Perhaps I would have created more things of my own if I'd not spent so much time fawning over the creations of others. My personality would have been entirely different if, early on in my youth, I had not blatantly lifted the clothes and mannerisms and styles of those I looked up to or had not read the books and watched the movies they had championed. For better or worse, art -- this specific form of art, music -- has been and continues to be a transformative force in my life. At the very center of this were two bands, R.E.M. and The Smiths, and specifically two people: Michael Stipe and Morrissey. My first two real heroes, with now only the former still on the pedestal I built when I was around 11 or 12. I moved to a new neighborhood and school district when I was in second grade, and became fast friends with a boy my age who lived one street over. Nathan and I shared a lot of the same interests, and as we started middle school, a deep obsession with those two aforementioned bands and frontmen (and, also, Depeche Mode and Dave Gahan). Nathan was gay before either one of us knew what that meant, and was often mocked for this -- I was made fun of, too, but for reasons far less difficult for me than coming to terms with my sexuality as an adolescent. But, for our own reasons, we were outcasts, seeking comfort in our chosen art. This was conservative Georgia in the late '80s/early '90s, a time well before the Internet, before easily accessible media, when role models were fought for tooth and nail, with plans having to be made on how to save enough allowance for cassette tapes, older friends or siblings bribed to purchase things with "parental advisory" labels we'd smuggle into our rooms later. I can barely put into words what hearing (and seeing!) Morrissey for the first time did to us -- did FOR us! For Nathan, in such an environment, Morrissey became a blueprint for queerness, the very first peek into the very POSSIBILITY of life as a grown man who wasn't either an alpha male jock, like all the ones at our school, or stern businessman with a briefcase, like all of our (step)dads. He was the first person to, with his mannerisms and his very existence, communicate to Nathan that it was perfectly fine (and cool even!) to, in the words of the bullies, "act like a girl." And the magical thing is, he somehow simultaneously did the exact opposite for me! As a masculine tomboy, I saw in him a person so easily blurring the lines of both! He made me feel better about the qualities I had so often been told "weren't ladylike." We talked about him constantly. We dressed like him. It goes without saying that his music was playing in the background nearly every time we hung out. I remember my mom allowing me to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson the night Morrissey was on -- I was 12, and I absolutely remember my mom getting angry, watching alongside me as Morrissey fans screamed over Bill Cosby (gulp) as he tried to talk. The next year, Morrissey was on Saturday Night Live, and my mom let me go over to Nathan's house to watch it (our parents became very close friends as well). He taped it on their VCR as we watched, and we immediately played it back. We watched it probably every day for months. We didn't have the money to buy all of his back catalog, so an older kid in my youth group at church let me borrow his Smiths CDs, and I dubbed copies on my tape deck for us. I sat and hand-wrote the lyrics down on notebook paper, carefully transcribing from the liner notes as the tape recorded. It's difficult for me to be eloquent here, and I always find it hard to convey these feelings to people who are, well, normal, who can hear a song and go, "That's nice!" and not have to immediately know its backstory, who wrote it, why they wrote it, what inspires them, what books they read, etc. Who don't feel their insides twist into knots when a turn of phrase meets a melody and the combination makes them feel understood in a way they never have, sets them at ease in a way that even the kind words of the closest relative couldn't do. That is absolutely how I felt the first time I heard The Smiths. When you're 12, at least when I was 12, the last people you feel like you can talk to about your feelings are your parents; and for Nathan, doubly so, as I don't think he could even articulate his until Morrissey's lyrics shed some light on what he'd been going through. So, for us, this guy was so far from "just a singer" -- he was a beacon, a mentor, he told us it was okay to be effeminate and okay to be masculine and okay that you didn't get invited to the parties because staying in your room reading books was more glamorous anyway. The world wasn't made for people like us and that should be worn as a badge of honor, not shame. Such a message was REVELATORY for a girl whose every male role model had let her down or left entirely and a boy who didn't want to play football or shoot guns. The obsession continued and deepened, and in high school, became full on reliance. Who better to help me navigate the emotional minefield that is the teen years than Morrissey? I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs, I didn't "party," I didn't even so much as hold a boy's hand until I was a couple weeks shy of 16 years old -- all of the things that kids considered fun and did on a regular basis were so foreign to me, until I got home to my bedroom and was soothed by the voice of a guy who also did not participate in any of the above. I didn't really know anyone in real life who seemed to understand my plight more than the man whose voice was blasting out of my speakers. To me, Morrissey was always absolutely the voice of the underdogs. The weirdos. The outcasts. The disenfranchised. Anyone who felt left out, let down, misunderstood, too sensitive, too sad. He was there to comfort us, understanding and empathetic to our needs while giving the finger to the system and the people therein who were keeping us down, shoving us into lockers, ripping the glasses off our faces and stomping on them in front of their domineering friends. When someone writes songs as seemingly personal as Morrissey's, you tend to think you know them. And in my case, having read so many books about him (and now some BY him), I felt that way, to a degree. I like to think of myself as a rational person (perhaps after reading this far, you disagree), but I definitely felt a bit like I "knew" him in the sense that I'd picked up on words he'd frequently used ("vulgar" and "vile" were personal favorites), had working knowledge of the causes that were important to him, and certainly knew his favorite bands and movies and authors. I'd even been lucky enough to meet him quite a few times, especially after moving to Los Angeles, where I'd see him at restaurants and shows, and he was always cordial (if not downright sweet) to me every time we spoke. Of course I'd heard stories about him "being a dick," but that never bothered me, truly, only because I think that's kind of relative, and perhaps a lack of manners or catching someone on a bad day is a bummer, and the "temperamental artist" archetype exists for a reason. Sure, it's ideal that someone you admire is nice to you should you ever interact, but a surly encounter would not cause me to write someone off completely. So, because of this, well, perhaps delusion, I was able to explain away certain statements, such as calling Chinese people a "subspecies" while addressing animal rights, because I knew of his history of exaggeration when trying to get his point across about that subject in particular, the one perhaps dearest to his heart. (And I won't pretend that white privilege didn't play a part; it's undoubtedly and shamefully easier to conveniently ignore something when you aren't the target.) This person's main place in my life thus far was almost as a therapist, so the possibility of him having anything other than the best of intentions seemed so unlikely. But the words became harder to parse, excuses harder to make. Playing the contrarian for the sake of it isn't helpful (or even entertaining) in times like these. You aren't at the Algonquin Round Table. You're courting Stormfronters. It's not funny or charming. I don't expect every artist I look up to (or even every friend or acquaintance in my life) to share my exact same views, but when your band wears T-shirts supporting the Black Panthers yet you voice your support for the likes of Nigel Farage, how does the cognitive dissonance not paralyze you? You change lyrics to songs to slam Trump, yet you basically share his views on immigration? You imply that a gay teenager -- arguably the demographic most deeply affected by your art -- is at fault for the predatory behavior of an adult? You've told anyone who will listen that you were raised on feminist literature, yet you claim the female victims of Harvey Weinstein -- a man who hired fuckin' BLACK OPS to spy on his accusers to make sure they never came forward, so calculated were his plans -- were just "disappointed" that their RAPES didn't result in career advancement?! WHO ARE YOU. Who is this person saying this? The very person who gave me the strength to stand against the establishment has become the establishment! The person whose voice soothed with empathy and compassion for outsiders like me has become someone I would have crossed the street to avoid. The bullied has become the bully. He has, for years now, exhibited the very closemindedness I thought he was trying to free us from. Is it just an inevitability that the spoils of success will change a person? If you isolate yourself and invite no one into your circle who will ever question you, is this the result? Contempt for the very people who supported you for so long? A quality I used to admire in Morrissey was his obstinance, but I've found as I've aged myself, standing by opinions for the sake of it, refusing to allow yourself to grow and change as more information becomes available, to never soften your heart and swallow your pride and apologize when you've realized you might have been wrong about something -- that's not admirable, that's cowardice. I appreciate it more when people admit they don't know enough about a subject to comment on it instead of making a statement just for attention. My heart is broken. The man I looked to as an oasis of sensitivity in a desert of toxicity seems, well, just plain mean and vengeful now. I refuse to be cynical, and I refuse to be someone who says, "That's what you get for having heroes." Perhaps the lesson here is just knowing when to let go. And that it was indeed the songs that saved my life, not the man.

Fifteen-year-old me in my bedroom.

[thebigladjake]

AX3001: Summer Brief - TV Pitch 2: Dreamcatching Research - Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

This was a show I particularly enjoyed as a kid, though I don’t remember the stories, I really do remember enjoying the opening stop motion sequences before the actual story of the episode. It was really dark and atmospheric with the kid walking to the theatre in the rain, the clever use of the old man’s puppet where they use his hands to great effect and as a child I had a feeling it was him but I was never certain. 

These moments always stood out to me, probably because he was one of few consistent characters in the show and the 2D animations were a lot cheaper looking. So, when I thought about creating a show about different stories each episode I knew I wanted some kind of shifty and creepy figure to be the host.

The Host and why he works

I think what really works with this character is the combination of his design and his voice. He is definitely creepy, what with his long spindly arms and fingers, hunched back, bloodshot eyes and hooked nose, but his mouth definitely draws you in as it’s much bigger and noticeable that the other details. He’s big goofy smile and rather proud voice helps a lot to make this character inviting in a strange sort of way. 

And under the right circumstances, he can look quite cute too.

As a child, I always thought these were coins, but now I know better and that these are film reels. It really should have been more obvious to me since he works at a theatre, but upon revisiting this kind of gave me a better idea.

From what the intro shows us, the man is the only worker at the theatre. He hands the boy the ticket, he hands the boy the treats and he loads up the reels. Rather than feeling like an actual worker, it kinda felt more like his hobby to me. So, that gave me the idea that he’s more of an archivist and that’s why he has stacks of reels! He’s a collector of all things gruesome and that gave me the idea that my character for Dreamcatching should be an archivist. Showing us their most favourite or just dreams that they find interesting.

 For Dreamcatching, I needed to think about how I will go about conveying that what the audience will see are dreams. That’s when I remembered this show and the character, so I had a little revisit and this stack of film reels helped me to piece this together.

What about the actual stories?

As the show puts it, these are a collection of cautionary tales. The story segments are narrated by the old man, similar to the classic episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine, just more scary. There are sometimes a lesson at the end, mainly just don’t be an asshole or don’t do a certain thing too much or else something bad will end up happening to you. A meaning isn’t necessary, but it’s nice to have something to take away from the whole experience.

The dreams I will explore in my series won’t necessarily be cautionary tales, it’ll mainly dependent on the character created for this dream. The character’s personality should be created first and then we create a possible dream for them. Because a dream is made up in our subconscious, it only makes sense if the character comes first and then their perception of the world is built around them.

The New Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids

Though this wasn’t necessary, since I had the old series to go off of, I saw on YouTube that there were various episodes with styles I didn’t recognise and 3D animated visuals for the introductory segments, it had made the unfortunate jump to CGI, much like how Thomas did, much like how Bob the Builder did. Watching the intro sequence immediately shows how ineffective this is, it’s not the CGI that makes it bad. Let’s take a look at what makes the original intro so good.

The intro begins with a kid walking through the rain to go to the theatre, judging from the collar beneath his coat, he may have just finished school and wants to go to watch a movie. Since the theatre’s name is “Squeam Screen”, it sets it up like maybe this boy likes these kinds of movies and potentially knows what he’s getting into.

The doors open with the man beckoning the boy in with his finger, maybe he comes there regularly or he’s just getting his attention. He gets his ticket with spiders on it and the whole floor has bugs crawling all over. Making the theatre a little more disgusting and uncomfortable. 

The boy takes his seat with the man handing him a box of “treats”, usually a different bug each episode. Cackling as he slinks away, the boy turns back to the screen. His nonchalant reactions to the glass smashing, the bats, the ghost, the screaming gives you the impression that he is used to this. Like he’s been here before or knows what this is about.

The man introduces himself by blowing out his torch and taking a reel from the stack. With the boy blindly eating one of the bugs in his box. The man then loads up the reel and begins the episode. It all works well, it doesn’t feel weird or exaggerated. Again, he’s a weird character, but he’s not entirely off-putting. 

Now look at this.

This is not the same character, as I just found out that the old man’s name is Uncle Grizzly, but in this CGI reboot, the Night-Night Porter replaces his role. He’s the manager of the Hot Hell Darkness. Let’s just analyse the intro and discuss why I don’t think it’s that effective. Watch to the one minute mark or one minute fifty seconds.

The intro begins with a misty night and the boy is walking through a graveyard of all places. The cheap animation also doesn’t really help as it’s pretty stiff and I think they had a vision in their head which they couldn’t really achieve. The textures are rather grubby and grimey. This time the boy runs off in the direction of the hotel. Instead of going there by his own volition.

The boy hides behind a tombstone after running away by the bat, and then the silhouette of what we can assume to be the manager of the hotel can be seen pulling a lever which opens a pit that takes the boy to the Hot Hell Darkness. 

The manager greets the boy, declaring that his room is ready and wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulder and taking them to their room. Locking them in their cell, revealing a huge selection of doors where the manager has presumably done the same. Making him much more creepy than Uncle Grizzly who was just a weirdo with reels upon reels of cautionary tales. Although, the reason given is that these are all the kids from the stories the manager can tell. While I do accept the reason, I personally think the cinematic aspect of the original is much more inviting because I’d definitely prefer to go to the Squeam Screen. Also, why does the boy get locked into a room? What’s he done? In the original, the boy isn’t punished for what he does, he’s legitimately just there!

I think they tried to do the opposite of everything the original intro had, but they didn’t do it well. It’s mainly the introduction shot of the boy walking through a graveyard at night, you can at least see why he’d go to a theatre on a rainy evening after school. It’s the middle of the night in the CGI version, what’s he doing there? Why does he run deeper into the graveyard? I think they should have definitely used more of the manager to set up the boy going to the hotel since Uncle Grizzly played every single role in the theatre in the original. 

Also, Squeam Screen rhymes. It rolls off the tongue and tells you everything you need to know. Hot Hell Darkness sounds like an edgy attempt to make some spooky hotel. It really bothers me because I feel like there could have been a much better way to get the point across.

Even though my projects don’t stay in reality much, you’ve got to be grounded in a way that’s believable and if you already have a good intro, what’s the point in trying to fix it?

[t-baba]

22 Best Android App Templates of 2020

Using app templates allows you to meet your client deadlines faster because all the programming work has been done for you. All you need to do is build the app according to your client's needs. 

One of the many Android app templates available on CodeCanyon 

Top-Selling Android App Templates for 2020 on CodeCanyon

For a productive app development journey in the year 2020, grab one of these popular Android app templates. We've combed through the thousands of Android app templates available at CodeCanyon to find the 20 best available this year.

These Android app templates are made in Android Studio, use Material Design, and come with step-by-step instructions or video tutorials on how to configure the templates from scratch. They also usually support AdMob, with the option of removing banners and interstitial ads. 

22 Best Android App Templates of 2020

In this roundup, I'll highlight the best Android app templates available right now at CodeCanyon, so you can build your ideal Android app in 2020. 

Best Universal App Templates

1. Bestseller: Universal Android App

Hands down one of the best and most popular Android app templates is Universal Android App. This awesome app lets users create just about any app they want by pulling in unlimited content from sources such as blogs, timelines, feeds, channels, playlists, or webpages, and easily combining them into one customisable app. The template supports the most popular web content sources, like WordPress, YouTube, Facebook, and RSS.

2. Material Design UI 

Material Design UI is a cool and stylish Android UI template with five gorgeous themes that can be used to make any app project you’re working on more aesthetically appealing. The template themes target social, travel, media, and shopping apps, and there is a universal theme that can be used with a wider variety of apps. The template uses hundreds of UI elements that can be recombined endlessly to create a beautiful and unique-looking app.

3. Universal Android WebView App

Convert your mobile and responsive websites into a beautiful app using Universal Android WebView App. It is compatible with WordPress and other web frameworks, is highly customisable and packed with features, and it supports HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, and other web technologies.

4. MaterialX

MaterialX is a UI template that can support any app project you want to develop. It is specifically designed to make your apps look amazing by providing you with beautiful, ready-to-use materials, so that no matter what app you’re creating, you can implement it in the code. Features include grid, list, and tab views, media player, social media timeline, e-commerce shopping, and more.

Best Social Network App Templates

5. Bestseller: WoWonder Android Messenger

Looking for a messenger app template to create your own Android messenger? Look no further than the WoWonder Android Messenger app template. Designed specifically as an Android chat application for the WoWonder social network, WoWonder Mobile Messenger allows users to chat together on their mobile phones. Features include the ability to make both audio and video calls, send and receive messages, share and upload images, make sound recordings, and so much more.

6. My Social Network

Built in Android Studio, My Social Network allows you to create your own personal social network app where you can publish posts, read the posts of friends, have a personal conversation with friends in real time, and more.

7. Dating App

The Dating App template is just what you need if you want to try your hand at creating your own online dating app. Built with Android Studio, the template's notable features include a beautiful gallery and user profiles. Users have the ability to comment, like, reply and send gifts, see potential dates that are nearby, make in-app purchases, send real-time direct messages with photos, and of course they can block other users.

Best Locator and Map App Templates

8. Bestseller: The City

Cities are complex spaces, and any app that helps locals and visitors alike navigate is bound to be a hit. The City is a great app template for developers who want to create an app for their city featuring the most interesting sights and the best restaurants, cafés, bars, shops, and more.

All the app data is stored in a local SQLite database, so the app works in offline mode. The template has great features like MapView to show locations, a featured category for recommended places, the ability to filter searches, a saved history of searches, and much more.

9. Store Finder

Having a store finder app on your mobile phone is non-negotiable. This kind of indispensability has made the Store Finder app template popular among developers. Made with Android Studio and material design, the app features a long list of must-have features like email and SMS integration, user ratings and reviews, Google directions, and social media logins. Users can also draw on the map, use map pins, share to Facebook and Twitter, and more.

10. City Guide

Create your own handy travel guide app for the city of your choice with the City Guide Android app template. Developed in Android Studio and styled with Material Design, this template is easy to configure and customise. It doesn’t require programming skills to use.

You can organise your chosen city highlights into categories like attractions, sports, hotels, and nightlife. These chosen highlights can also be viewed as clickable spots on an interactive map which uses geolocation to identify your phone’s current position and distance from each highlight.

Best Music and Video App Templates

11. Bestseller: Android Live TV

The Android Live TV app template helps developers create apps that allow end users to watch live TV on their Android devices. The app offers a registration/login screen, a home screen, and a navigation screen which shows all sections of the app. Channels are organised by categories, and users can comment on channels or report issues with channels. The app is easy to configure, and detailed documentation is provided.

12. Your Radio App

Hands down the best radio app template to be found at CodeCanyon, Your Radio App is perfect for developers who want to create their own mobile Internet radio-streaming app. With a powerful admin panel, the app can manage unlimited radio stations and categories and supports many formats.

13. Your Videos Channel

If you are a YouTuber, a videographer, or a developer with clients who are videographers, Your Videos Channel app template may appeal to you because it essentially allows you to create an app dedicated to showing off your videos or a video collection of your choosing. The app, which has YouTube integration, uses PHP MySQL for the admin side and can manage unlimited categories and video uploads.

14. xMusic

xMusic will appeal to Android developers who are looking for a template to help them create an online-offline music player app. This app plays millions of free songs from SoundCloud via the SoundCloud API, but can switch to music from the user’s own library if they prefer. 

Some of the great features the template offers are a powerful equalizer with many preset music styles, support for sleep mode and a number of playlists, a powerful search, and much more.

Best Food Delivery Apps

15. Bestseller: Food Delivery

This food delivery app provides a lot of functionality for people who want to create a food delivery app. Food Delivery is based on the Flutter framework developed by Google for cross-platform mobile apps and relies on the PHP-based Laravel framework for the back-end heavy lifting.

You can use the app for managing multiple restaurants and integrate Google maps to show users directions to reach a specific restaurant within the app. It is also easy to restyle the app so that its theme matches your own brand.

Another app called Delivery Boy For Multi-Restaurants Flutter App by the same developer works great together with this food delivery app. You can use it to manage all people who make deliveries of the food. This includes things like orders assigned to different employees and their delivery status and history.

16. Grocery, Food, Pharmacy, Store Delivery

This Grocery and Pharmacy delivery app is similar in functionality to the food delivery app. However, it has a more general purpose UI. Both this app and the food delivery app were created by the same developer so they use the same underlying technology.

The app looks great in light mode as well as dark mode. It offers a set of ready to use animations like parallax, sliding and swiping animations. It also supports different payment methods and cash on delivery.

Its companion app called Delivery Boy for Groceries, Foods, Pharmacies can be used to track the delivery status of different items by your employees.

Best Special-Purpose App Templates

17. Bestseller: Android News App

The Android News App template is the go-to template for those looking to create a mobile news app for Android devices. Users can view the latest news in different categories, save articles as favourites, get notified about the latest articles, and more. It comes with an easy-to-use admin dashboard for modifying the news categories and other details.

18. Android Wallpapers App

The HD Wallpaper app template allows developers to create an app which delivers gorgeous wallpapers and backgrounds to the user’s Android device. The app features multiple galleries of high-resolution images, easy tap, swipe and scroll functions, and offline caching of wallpapers.

19. AdForest

AdForest is the perfect classified ad app template if you want to build an app to manage  product listings for an ad posting business. The template has a built-in text messaging system for easy communication between buyers and sellers. It comes with push notifications to alert users when there’s a message on an ad, and the Google Maps integration allows users to get directions to the seller.

20. E-Commerce

If you're looking to set up an online e-commerce business and need the perfect Android mobile app for your business, check out the E-Commerce app template. It is designed to help you create your own mobile e-commerce app quickly and easily. The template provides a powerful admin panel so that you can set up everything exactly as you want it, including adding currency and taxes. You'll also be able to create categories and product menus and manage orders effectively. 

21. Quizix

Quizix is a fabulous Android quiz app template that uses maths, text, and/or photo questions, and has space for two to four answer options. Developers simply add their categories, sub-categories and questions in the back end, and the app formulates the quiz. This template also comes with AdMob banners and interstitials.

22. Cookbook Recipe App

Create your own recipe application with the Cookbook Recipe App template. This native Android app template doesn’t require programming skills, and the code is easy to configure and customise. It also stores recipes in a local SQLite database so users can run the app without an Internet connection. Other great built-in features include a drawer menu with categories, shopping list, favourites, a powerful search, Google Analytics, various animations and effects, and more.

Free Android App Templates

The premium mobile app templates available on CodeCanyon will undoubtedly give you the most advanced features and the best possible user experience. They are complete apps with full source code—in many cases you can customize them to create your own working app, without any coding. However, if you're on a tight budget, you might not want to use a paid template. The good news is that there are free alternatives to these premium mobile app templates.

Many mobile app design templates or UI kits have been created by designers and are free to download and use in your own project. To create an app from one of these free app design templates, you will need to do all the coding yourself, though. The UI kit or design template will only include the layout and graphics for your app—you'll have to figure out how to turn this design into a real app.

Below are a collection of five great free mobile app design templates that you can download for free in 2020.

1. Travel App Screen

This is a basic UI for a travel app which lets users see information about nearby hotels such as their ratings, booking options and photos.

2. Messenger UI Kit

This UI kit was developed to create UI elements that look very similar to the Facebook messenger. It contains a variety of icons, color and spacing elements etc.

3. Gossip Chat App

This app template provides UI for a chat app concept where co-passengers can chat with each other through a shared network while traveling. The design is based on Material design guidelines.

4. User Profile Screen

The UI of this user profile screen was built using Plaster components. All the components have their own attributes and styles to make it easier for you to customize the UI and make it unique for your app.

5. Android TV UI

This app template serves a different segment. Its UI is designed based on guidelines that are need for it to quality as an Android TV app. The user interface is created in a way that helps users discover desired content quickly.

Launch Your Android App With a Great Template

These 20 best Android app templates of 2020 are just a small selection of the hundreds of Android app templates we have available at CodeCanyon, so if none of them quite fits your needs, there are plenty of other great options to choose from. 

More Android App Template Resources on Envato Tuts+

And if you want to improve your skills building Android apps and templates, then check out some of the ever-so-useful Android tutorials we have on offer.

The following articles can help you zero in on specific app categories.

Android SDK

10 Best Android Game Templates

Ashraff Hathibelagal

App Templates

15 Best eCommerce Android App Templates

Daniel Strongin

Material Design

Best Material Design Android App Templates

Nona Blackman

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[housebeleren]

Theros Beyond Death New Commanders

Theros is a world full of flavor, and with lots of flavor come lots of great Legendary Creatures. And boy, Wizards didn’t skimp this time around did they? Several of the Gods from original Theros are still among the best Commanders to this day, and most of the rest are staples in the 99. So it should come as no surprise that this crop of cards is a treasure trove of goodies. I imagine a huge number of these will be heavily played for years to come.

Let’s go.

As usual, I’ll start with the Buy-a-Box promo. Athreos seems pretty solid. He’s super expensive to get out, but the good news is he’s Indestructible, so barring transformation effects & exile, he’s going to stick around long enough to get value. He seems like a really solid option if you’re looking for a W/B aristocrats general, especially if you want to play with good ETB effects. The added bonus here is he can occasionally steal your opponent’s creatures too, which gives him an added dimension over a lot of otherwise similar options. I also suspect a lot of people will misread the “dies or is put into exile” text, with much frustration. 

In Brawl, Athreos is close to busted, as there are so few ways to deal with him and he generates such insane value. You basically have to be fast and go under him or find creative ways to win, because he’s going to build up a massive board state really fast. And there are so few board wipes to clean up. In short, a solid choice for EDH, and a bonkers choice for Brawl.

I mean, who are we kidding? Blue/Green is the best 2-color combination in EDH, and it wins through its ability to make tons of mana and draw tons of cards. And Uro...... ramps and draws cards. Yeah, seems like a good effect to have in the Command Zone. For a more 75% direction, you can focus on the thematic direction of the “Nature’s Wrath”. Which is what I’m going to build, personally. Lots of ramp into big Giants & Elementals for stompy stompy wins. And I like that Uro can lend himself to strategies up & down the spectrum, so he’ll appeal to all types of players. Though it’s highly possible the competitive scene will ruin it by creating some busted version of this deck and putting a target on our backs.

In Brawl, this seems equally busted, because it’s not like there’s anything you can do in Standard with piles of mana in Blue & Green, is there? Not at all.

Kroxa is really cool design. Feels perfect for the colors, but still something a little different and unique. The more competitive community immediately jumped on this as a Worldgorger/Animate Dead build, since he works as a built-in win-con for the combo, but it’s also quite possible to build a solid R/B punisher deck around this. There are also the all-in discard builds, but that seems particularly miserable, and unnecessary, since it’s super easy to get tons of activates off Kroxa himself, with the help of some reanimation effects.

For Brawl, I’d build this as a Red/Black control deck, using Kroxa to strip the opponent’s hand, clearing the board with removal, and eventually winning either with Kroxa as a massive beater, or with some of the strong planeswalkers in the color pair (of which there are several). For what it’s worth, the correct play pattern is basically always to cast Kroxa the first time, let him go to the Command Zone, then cast him from there for 4 before saving him in the graveyard for Escaping. 

Polukranos looks like mostly a Standard powerhouse, at first glance. But the more time I spend with it, the more I’m convinced it would make a pretty solid Commander inclusion as well. If you’re building with Polukranos at the helm, you’ll want plenty of library filter & self-mill effects, as well as plenty of recursion. It’s often fine to just keep reanimating him as a 6/6 removal engine, but the Escape is there as well in case you need. Some ways to add extra counters to him seem good as well, and there are a plethora of those in these colors, particularly Green, go figure. He’d also be good in the 99 of other +1/+1 counters decks, as a good payoff when you need.

Seems good in Brawl.

Klothys seems likely to be way better than people are likely to expect. The closest comparison I can think of is actually Pharika, but with the added potential to ramp you and incidentally hate on more than just Creatures, all for no additional investment than your initial 3 mana. The immediate concept that springs to mind is actually Land Destruction, which is a kinda dick way to go, but probably quite effective. She’s an interesting card, and lends herself to very creative deckbuilding, rather than having an obvious build, and I always appreciate that.

For Brawl, you really can just build this as Red/Green good stuff, and it’ll work. Enough cards will naturally end up in the graveyard to fuel her ability and turn her into a completely viable clock on your opponents.

Purphoros seems nuts in EDH. Mono-Red typically isn’t great (unless you’re going full Artifact mode), so I actually envision Purphoros in the 99 of other Sneak Attack style decks for added redundancy. He’ll be a pretty obvious inclusion in Gruul & Jund sacrifice decks, particularly those that focus reanimating big fatties for massive swings.

In Brawl, there are some good options. Drakuseth comes to mind as a natural pairing with this, and there are definitely some other good targets to cheat out, but it’s unlikely he’ll beat out Torbrand as the mono-Red general of choice, particularly for 1v1, where that card is able to close out games ridiculously fast.

Nylea is likely going to get a lot of flack, compared to the other Gods, where she’s less obviously busted. That said, she strikes me as a pretty viable option for a creature heavy build, along the lines of what you might build for Yeva, Nature’s Herald. The cost reduction is relevant, and could be pretty gross at the helm of Elfball as well. She’s also a reasonable option for a Primal Surge deck, so I actually think there are plenty of possible directions you can go, and people will slowly figure that out.

For Brawl, my guess is Nissa, Who Shakes the World is still the best.

Heliod has already attracted tons of attention for the instant combo with with Walking Ballista, and having one half of a two card combo in your Command Zone is not a bad way to start. Beyond that, as far as mono-White generals go, Heliod has a lot more potential than some. He can grow into a massive threat very quickly, and partners perfectly with a the plethora of life-gain payoffs in the color. He’s also a shoe-in for lifegain Generals like Ayli & Karlov, so he’d work great in the 99 of several decks.

In Brawl, you have several good options to fill up the deck, but it’ll be tough to be a better aggro deck than Red, and White just doesn’t have the staying power for the long game, so I’m expecting most of the other Gods to be better.

Oooh Thassa baby, it’s so good to see you again! I love that they took this to another direction from the original card, but it’s still interesting and fun. My immediate thought here wasn’t actually to make a flicker deck, but to make a stealing deck, since they templated her in the style of Conjurer’s Closet, where the card doesn’t return under its owner’s control, but back under your control. Meaning, if you steal something with something like Willbreaker or Roil Elemental, you get to keep them! This also makes her a great inclusion in the 99 of stealing commanders like Sen Triplets or Rubinia Soulsinger. Or, y’know... put her in a flicker deck.

In Brawl, Thass is pretty great, since there are some amazing things to blink with her. Most notably is Agent of Treachery, and it shouldn’t be hard at all to close out the game after landing that.

Erebos is here to serve, and I am loving this design. In an aristocrats deck, this version is arguably better than OG Erebos, and that’s saying a lot. But the original version will do better in just any ole Black deck. As a Commander, you definitely want to build this around cheap value creatures you can sacrifice for extra value. There’s no shortage of good mono-Black generals, so build around this one if you really love the flavor.

For Brawl, it’s tough to say if Ayara or Erebos is better, but you’ll definitely want both in each other’s deck. 

On to the Rare legends, we start with Atris. I love me some Fact or Fiction, but I need just a little more oomph to be a Legend worth building around. Might be a fun inclusion in a flicker deck, but I doubt anyone’s going to be clamoring to build an Atris deck. Even in Brawl, where there are plenty of better & more interesting Blue/Black generals. (Ashiok & Lazav come to mind immediately.)

There’s no shortage of Red/Blue Artifact-based commanders, so Dalakos has some tough competition. My guess is there are still some stronger options, but Dalakos has a unique angle by caring about Equipment, which is typically more of a White-aligned Artifact direction. So there’s definitely an interesting build here, probably for 75% tables. In more competitive decks, I could see Dalakos seeing play in plenty of Artifact builds.

I’m not sure if there’s enough good Equipment in Standard to make Dalakos worth building around in Brawl, but we’ll see as future sets come out if there’s anything spicy that makes this worth building.

Gallia is loads of fun. She gives support to an underserved tribe, has a card advantage ability that feels very fun & appropriate for the color pair, and is just some fantastic art to boot. It’s unlikely that this will be a particularly competitive deck, but fans of Satyrs and casual aggro will rejoice, and rightfully so. In Brawl, she’s much more impressive from a power standpoint, and will likely be a popular choice from this set.

Haktos is a super creative design, and one of the best top-down flavor wins of the set. (Not to mention fine AF.) In EDH, he’s a very clear Voltron commander, since he is close to unblockable and dodges most spot removal. That said, you can’t reliably equip or enchant him, so cards that buff him up generally will be staples in this deck. I’d look to cards like Bastion Protector and Bloodsworn Steward, which can put him in the key 7+ power range without an issue, and plenty of spot removal to get rid of pesky blockers that happen to fall on the chosen number. And of course, in those colors you’re also probably going to go for some extra combat effects. It’s unlikely to be super competitive, but honestly this deck seems like a ton of fun. 

For Brawl, he’s solid in 1v1, but I don’t love him for multiplayer because there will be more creatures and removal around in the 2-4 CMC range than in EDH, so he may be even easier to deal with. Sometimes he’ll completely run away with the game, but he’s such an obvious target that he’ll just get removed over and over again.

Kunoros has a lot going on for 3 mana, but there’s not much to build around here. It’s basically a hatebear for Graveyard-heavy metas, but in White/Black that’s probably actually more of a liability than a feature, since you lose out on powerhouse cards like Karmic Guide and Sun Titan. I suppose Graveyard to Hand still works, so cards like Ravos are still on the table, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth. 

Same story for Brawl. In both formats, I see him as a role-player hatebear in the 99 of decks that want to disrupt as it grinds to a win. 

I’m always for a new tribe getting a Legendary creature, though who’s aching to build a harpy deck, I have no idea. It’s also tough because Black is not a particularly strong Enchantment color, so I really don’t know if there’s a deck here. (Watch me get this as a random build one month.) My best use case for Aphemia would be in the 99 of an Enchantment deck like Daxos the Returned or something.

Spiders are also a fun, unique tribe, though you definitely want Black to make the best use of them. Arasta, again, seems like there’s not much of a build here except as an incidental hoser against all-spell decks. Maybe if your meta is all Talrand decks?

Taranika is a cool design, and phenomenal in Limited, but yeah there just isn’t enough here for EDH, even in the 99. Maybe she’ll be an inclusion in the 59 for Brawl? But that’s really as much as I can possibly see here.

Of the mono color Rare Legends, Thryx is the only one with real EDH potential, from what I can see. He has Flash, so you can hold up counterspells, which is exactly what mono-Blue wants to do. And from there, he lets you cast massive spells at a bit of a discount, and has incidental “can’t be countered” text against opposing Blue manges, which is a fair amount of action. I’m considering him for the 99 of my Grixis Vial Smasher deck, since that deck wants to cast all kinds of big dumb spells. 

Seems like there are better mono Blue options for Brawl, however.

On to the Uncommons. There isn’t going to be a lot here for Commander, since these are mostly balanced for Limited play. Eutropia is a bit interesting, and there are some possibilities. She’s in the best EDH colors, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to conceive of a way to generate a ton of mana, use Deadeye Navigator to flicker an Enchantment Creature a bunch of times, then swing for lethal. There are certainly better Green/Blue generals, but honestly that’s a lot of action for an Uncommon. In the 99, I could see her in various Enchantress style builds as a fun flavorful inclusion.

There are no shortage of powerhouse Green/Blue options for Brawl, but Eutropia could be a fun experiment to take in a different direction than you would Uro, Vannifar, or Kiora.

Siona is a super interesting design, as an Aura buildaround. Of course, the hotness here is that she immediately goes infinite with Shielded by Faith, which gives her way more viability than she would otherwise. Throw in a Concordant Crossroads and you have an insta-win, and they’re all super easily tutored pieces in these colors. There’s also potential just as an inclusion in the 99 of decks that run lots of Auras, like Uril or something. 

In Brawl, this could be a really fun aggro deck for 1v1, though I think it’ll be a struggle in multiplayer.

The monocolor Uncommon Legends all basically have no viability as Commanders, so I’ll do these Lightning Round style.

Anax - Could be an inclusion in the 99 of certain OG Purphoros builds or other Red decks that want lots of tokens.

Renata - There are some decks that really care about Counters that I suppose this works in. She’s really cute with Persist, but you’ll need more colors to be able to make use of the really good Persist cards.

Daxos - Daxos is doing his best Soul Sister impression, and it’s really working. I’d slot him into any decks that want that effect, especially since many of them are White/Black with sacrifice outlets as well.

Callaphe - Probably the weakest of the bunch. Maaaayyybe possible in a mono Blue devotion deck? But I’m not suspecting this will see any play.

Tymaret - For the most part a pretty strict upgrade over Withered Wretch, not counting Zombie synergies. The Wretch is a card I run more than a lot of people do, and I see myself running this for similar reasons.

Alirios - The dream here is to flicker him multiple times and get an army of reflections. It’s possible in a heavy flicker deck like Brago or something, but it’s not enough to run him on his own.

And finally, the Planeswalkers for Brawl. Ashiok strikes me as particularly good as a Blue/Black control build. It should be pretty easy to keep the board clear early until you drop Ashiok, then the incremental value will be overwhelming pretty quickly. 

You best believe I built this deck, and it is fire. There are so many good Enchantments legal right now that it’s trivial to put together a pretty solid build. The best part is, a lot of the good removal in White are Enchantments anyway, so you can often use his +1 to find removal, without having to tick him down. This deck has been a ton of fun, and it goes toe-to-toe with a lot of the best decks really well.

While a powerhouse for Standard, Elspeth isn’t quite priced to move for Brawl. There are just other, most powerful options. I’d generally run Heliod instead, and include Elspeth in the 59 if you really want.

Usually the Planeswalker Deck cards are awful, but this Ashiok isn’t half bad. It’s a fun Blue/Black reanimation deck, and I enjoy that. It’s unfortunate you can’t activate her -5 right away, which is the real thing holding this back. Lazav is probably better as a Blue/Black creature build, but I could actually see this. 

And finally, Planeswalker Deck Elspeth. Honestly, I’d rather run this as my mono-White general than Sun’s Nemesis, since there’s a pretty solid Devotion build to be made. Not saying it’s good or anything, but it’s actually probably better than the main-set version, and that’s saying something.

Okay! That’s all the Legends from Theros Beyond Death. There are honestly too many of them, it’s hard to keep up! I’m building Uro for EDH and Calix for Brawl. What about you?

[craigwinslow]

2019: Wait whoa what

The year began quietly with a lot of research and education; teaching workshops, playing with new technology, and a few concepts I couldn’t get out of my head. The momentum of client work began to pick up as I traveled to New Mexico, Japan, and NYC. 

The balance of personal and work life has been something I’ve not often shared about, but have written extensively on for myself. In late February I went through a breakup, at the same time I was the busiest with work that I’ve ever been. A flow of success combined with inner turmoil led to pressured feelings resulting in me not posting much online, despite having the most productive and gratifying year yet.

Halfway through the year I had completed about 15 projects and was ready for a hiatus when The Neon Museum brought me on as an experiential consultant for the upcoming Tim Burton exhibition. I then found myself brought on by Tim Burton to lead design for the exhibition and the rest of the year was a blur; living in France, Malibu, and Las Vegas, working with Tim to bring his vision of many new artworks to life. 

Here's a look back at my work from 2019, followed by a look forward to 2020.

Light Capsules

During Portland Winter Light, I added three of my favorite ghost signs to my growing series that began during my Adobe Creative Residency.

Light Capsule No.032 - Sam Moy & Co. Light Capsule No.033 - Say it with Flowers Light Capsule No.034 - Talbot & Casey / Ford Garage

Teaching More Workshops

For the past few years, I’ve been teaching projection mapping, focusing on MadMapper and showing the potential of new platforms like Lightform. I started off the year with a handful of workshops at PNCA where I’ve been an occasional adjunct faculty / research fellow, but later taught in New Mexico, and at LetterWest in Salt Lake City.

New Mexico Highlands University

NMHU brought me in as a special advisor, mentoring their students on an exhibit at Jemez Historic Site with New Mexico Historic Sites. Using the cyc-wall in their campus production studio, we created an actual size projection to mockup their design.

While visiting the site, I captured the San José de los Jemez Mission Church with drone photogrammetry. This tool continually inspires me and led to exploring new pre-vis techniques throughout the year, integrating with platforms like Disguise One, and The Wild.

Winchester Mystery House Concepts

I was commissioned to conceptualize ways to improve or augment their visitor experience. I won’t go into detail about the secrets… it was an incredible opportunity to explore and develop ideas for such a notoriously historical estate.

Pre-Visualization in Disguise One - under NDA

Bear with me for the vagueness on this one, but it’s worth sharing as it was a significant benchmark & success! I introduced a pre-visualization content pipeline that uses virtual reality and photogrammetry to get a more realistic sense of a surrounding environment for wayfinding, large scale projections, and digital/physical interfaces. Wow, so cool.

Oxfam America - Behind the Barcodes at SXSW

One of the proudest moments of 2019 put my skills to use with Oxfam. We staged an incredibly impactful guerilla projection from over 400ft away on Whole Foods HQ. Two more light installations targeted a large wall just before you drive up to their HQ, and a store in the suburbs. Find out more about the campaign at Behind the Barcodes. 

‘Line Break’

Created for the Design Week Portland party curated by Kamp Grizzly, it was time consuming but therapeutic to create. I brought back one of my favorite materials from one my earlier installations “Light Fall” back in 2015. Designed to be site-specific to fit the space, (and cover-up doors) it is a focus on self-reflection, looking forward/outward and backward/inward, simultaneously.

Tokyo Letterheads

A very timely mental reset, my first trip to Japan was incredible. During Tokyo Letterheads I stayed dedicated to the newbie sign painting room, practicing the craft of sign painting. The following week I explored Kyoto and Koyasan. A very much needed solo trip.

Believer Festival - Featured Artist

I had the pleasure of collaborating with José Orduña on a three-part performance, projection mapping the surrounding him at Ne10 to augment his spoken words. I also created an ambient animated version of their branding, built into a projected backdrop that added life but didn’t distract from intimate performances on the opening night stage of the the literary Believer Festival.

Ready Made - POWER TRIP

Chosen as one of 5 featured artists, I was given the opportunity and creative reign on a warehouse space, reflecting on what power meant to me. I performed a live-mapping of the stage backdrop while it was being painted by Charlie Hudson, and made a DIY laser array that cast throughout the space.

Champlain College Commencement 2019

I had the honor of working with the office of The President of Champlain College to help lead creative direction, stage design, content design, and experiential flow of the commencement. 

KOBE - for Ren 03: Philadelphia

A secret project carried out in one night. I teamed up with photographer Kyle Hannon for Ren Quarterly to create three site-specific projections mapped various memorable locations from Kobe Bryant’s childhood, created using rare source images from Kobe’s high school years.

LetterWest Breakout Speaker

I was asked to give a talk at LetterWest and I’m so glad I did. It came at a great time for me, reflecting on past years working independently, that the idea of ‘success’ has many forms, and urging those in attendance to find their own inner weird. Stay giddy, friends.

‘Emerson’s Reflection’ - Love Letters Exhibit

As part of a large experiential exhibit love for letters of all kinds, this 2-month installation immersed you within excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” and “Experience” that really spoke to me, edited to neutralize pronouns. For me, this piece was all about putting the visitor within a reflective space of self-love, shown in an interactive, photogenic way.

Brilliant! System Overhaul

One of the most successful yet unseen accomplishments of the year was executing a complete technical overhaul of our permanent exhibition ‘Brilliant!’ at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, improving stability by adding an entirely new show controller, lighting control module, and audio testing interface.

Tim Burton’s ‘Lost Vegas’ Exhibition

From the design of a 40ft. tall title centerpiece sign to the artistic styling of a sexy slot machine, I was tasked to work with Tim Burton to rapidly prototype and translate his vision and sketches into polished creations as the 'Lost Vegas' Exhibition's creative director. 

Working closely with Tim Burton for 3 months in France, Malibu, and Las Vegas, with assistant to Mr. Burton Lilah Lutes, and executive producer Sam Kelley, in coordination with curator Jenny He, we were able to bring to life the incredibly ambitious task of organizing the fabrication of a ton of new artworks and coordinating everything for a two-week period.

Each piece deserves its own post to share the process and talented people behind it, but in an effort to keep this 2019 recap tight, here a few of my favorite works: ‘Lost Vegas’ Sign Tower, Neon Grid Wall, the Dome, Landmark Hotel Model Mars Attacks! Projection, Robot Boy And Slot Machine, Stainboy Arcade, Holographic Drawings and Paintings, and the mysterious ViewPorts scattered throughout the boneyard...

The exhibition has been extended to April 12, so don’t miss it. 

CBS This Morning did a great profile on Tim Burton and the exhibition here: Inside "the mind of Tim Burton" at Neon Museum in Las Vegas 

Brilliant! feat. Tim Burton

The icing on the cake for the year. I’m so happy to have been able to collaborate with director and artist Tim Burton on an homage finale during ‘Brilliant!’ for the extent of his exhibition, featuring the track “The Man” by The Killers and iconic footage from Mars Attacks! and Beetlejuice.

‘Brilliant!’ is by far one of the proudest works I’ve created and I’m looking forward to furthering my partnership with The Neon Museum going strong into 2020.

~

In closing 2019, and forward:

2019 was a year that began with heartbreak and a humbling workload, which transitioned into recalibration and self-reflection, was then thrown into a wild mind-bender of work before wrapping the year full circle, finding myself in a quite unexpected new love. 

I found myself focusing on a lot of pre-visualization work, finding new ways to optimize my own workflow and simulate what a project could be, before making it. Leaning into my ability to work rapidly, this workflow smoothly translated a director’s vision through 3D modeling into visualization in VR. 

An ever-growing thread through my work focuses on history, my neverending fascination with bridging the gap between distant past with upcoming technologies to contribute to a more thoughtful future.

As 2020 begins, I’m coming back from a storm starting to hone in on my own voice and what I’d like to accomplish next. As a result of a growing interest in larger-scale immersive works, I’ve begun to assemble the right people/partners for those projects— exploring what ‘scaling’ my studio looks like, while staying nimble. 

Over the next few months, I’m going to spend some solid time auditing my work, recalibrating, and refocusing my studio practice and website as I enter year 7 of this independent venture, and year 10 of this creative career.

And as always, my goal mantra for the year.

2020: Position, Rotate, Scale

Position— Slow down for a studio realignment, audit, assess life balance.

Rotate— Be ever-ready for change, see things from different perspectives.

Scale— Fewer but larger? Hire or partner? Set realistic expectations/boundaries.

Bringing this energy into 2020, I’m looking forward to new work I’ll be able to announce soon that will bring me back to my home state of Maine, as well as what’s next for my work in Las Vegas. I’m also going to invest in Light Capsules again, and get a new road trip project in the books. 2020.

[littlehungrywarrior]

there’s a lot of things about me that are fucking absurd and really cool, so when ppl ask me to tell them about myself, i break em out immediately (”my family heirloom is a severed head named oswald,” “I can see disney studios from my house,” etc) 

but just bc im bored and I feel like it, here’s some stuff about me that I dont think I’ve ever really talked about? not secrets, but just...mundane things that I don’t really ever say in favor of Ice Breaker™-type things 

I have a profound respect for mail services. When I was 7-8 years old, we watched a documentary in class about how the postal system works, its history, and about the various jobs involved. It was an extremely formative experience for me. I don’t send a lot of things over snailmail and so I’m not really sure how to express my respect and support but it’s definitely there. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to play the FallOut game where you’re a mail carrier, but I wanna... I wanna. 

Though I’ll claim to the ends of the earth that sports confuse me, I am a huge speed-running enthusiast. One hobby/interest/self-esteem exercise I have is that I really like to learn jargon/lingo involved with...anything, really. So I started watching speedruns to pick up the lingo and I just...became infatuated. I’m no expert but I’m %100 into it for more than the lingo at this point; I’ve long since got that covered. One of my favorite parts is golf-clapping along with other fans when something cool/impressive happens. 

I can’t sleep without a hat on. A beanie, specifically. When I was, like...5 or something, I was terrified of vampires, and for some reason I thought vampires bit the skull and not the neck. So I pulled my blankets up over my head at night. My parents thought this was dangerous (I might suffocate) so they gave me a hat to protect myself with. I’ve long since outgrown my fear of vampires (and learnt that they don’t typically bite skulls) but I’ve associated hats with nighttime safety for so long that I can’t fall asleep without one. In the event that I don’t have one, I can wear underwear on my head to suffice...and I think I wore a stuffed animal once somehow but idk. 

I’ve had my SPiN in genetics for so long that 5-year-old me used to infodump strangers at the grocery store. When I asked where babies come from, my dad got me a picture book written for kids specifically to answer that question. We still have it; my brothers used it, too. It starts by explaining pollination and then extends the same concepts to dogs and then humans. Most of the information is on pregnancy and fetuses rather than sex, and cell development immediately caught my fascination. I asked my parents for more information about this and they gave me some more microbiology stuff. Combine that with my animal obsession + budding interest in heredity and you’ve got a tiny obnoxious geneticist who wouldn’t stop telling random people in line at the grocery store about how chromosomes are passed on through haploid cells. Dad got real smug about it, it was fantastic. 

On a similar note (and I have no memory of how this actually happened), I more or less learnt to read spontaneously? All at once? Again, I have no clear memory of this until the part where I can read... My parents read to me every night but I never was able to do it myself. I had a huge library built into the wall at perfect me-height for reading. One morning, the summer I turned 5, I (according to legend) walked up to my parents, got their attention, said “I’m going to read now,” and then (this part I do remember) sat down and read every single book in that library over the course of two or three days. Super rough estimate, but it was somewhere between 70-200 books, with a variety of target ages ranging from 3 to 10-11. No chapter books, all pictures, but the second I was finished I wanted more books. My mom took me to the store to buy more and insisted I get a chapter book since I’d burnt through the picture books so fast. And that’s where I got my first Warriors book. 

That was not the last time I read an entire library. In 7th grade, a friend of mine and I both had sex ed previously and so were allowed to skip that year’s sex ed on the condition that we spent that class in the school library. And together, we read the entire thing. Only what was on the shelves, though; nothing in the back. Actually, at one point on the last day, we’d already read every book in the place and we were bored, so we pulled some books out of the back to look at and none of them caught our interest. One of them was the first Hunger Games book WAY before it got popular. We’d never heard of it, both read the first 2 pages, didn’t like it at all, and put it back. You should’ve seen our faces when it suddenly blew up into a huge thing. The sad thing is, I remember a lot of books that I enjoyed but can’t find now because I can’t remember any specific titles or characters. We sped through everything to finish it all and didn’t really take a lot of time to absorb details so a lot of them are lost to the vague, hazy back of my memory. Still looking for that manga where the ninja kid...stops an evil scientist from...some kind of virtual world machine. There’s a piranha tank? And then the bad guy...gets sniped by a helicopter and falls off the roof, or something? Also there was a manga version of Maximum Ride, which I only remember by name because 2 chapters in it suddenly hit me that this was a comic version of a text-novel my mom was reading at the same time. I bought a handful of books from that library at the end of the year and still have them. 

I’ve only been in one play but something fucking sweet happened during production. I was Malvolio in Twelfth Night because, and I quote my drama teacher (who had known me for 8-ish years at that point and also who was smirking her ass off when she said this), “You’ll see why when you read the play.” She was not wrong and to this day that smug fuckin grin gives me life. Anyway, I was Malvolio, and you know that “Some have greatness thrust upon them” speech that everyone’s so inspired by? That speech is a fucking prank pulled on this asshole and it’s about bangin’. So the scene is that I dramatically read this “””love letter””” I’ve received and then run off to go embarrass myself. The speech is LONG and so I asked if I can just...actually have it written on the letter. And she said yes! So I wrote it down with intent of reading it off the letter. But opening night, the actress who was to place the letter grabbed the wrong paper and so I got just a blank sheet. Guess fucking what? We’d re-choreographed that scene so many times the night before that I slammed that shit anyway, word-for-fucking-word. And I was never mad at my friend for grabbing the wrong paper, so I say this in jest, but her punishment for grabbing the wrong paper is that the entire cast/production team did not hear the end of my pride for the entire week. For a timeframe reference, I was 12. 

When I was a kid I had a horse named Emmy. She was a rental horse. Actually, I think she was a pony? The way the rental worked was that she lived in a barn with a bunch of other horses. Her owners were a small business who gave riding lessons, but instead of just riding each session, one of the horses was “yours” (assigned by age, height, and temperament, not picked by the kid) to take care of while you were there and ride consistently every session. Essentially, she was only my pet when I was on the property. I can still ride but I’ve gotten rusty and I can’t do anything above a trot for more than a few seconds. Both times I’ve jumped have been accidents, once on Emmy and once on mom’s current horse, Meteor. I’ve fallen only once, and it was off Emmy. Mom’s going to be getting a gigantic thoroughbred soon and I’m both terrified and excited to ride this very large boy. 

I talk about this in person but not online because...why would it ever come up online?? I have worn the same style of red jacket every single time I leave the house since I was a pre-teen. It’s to the point where people will only recognize me if I’m wearing it. I had a friend in high school who was/is a really cool guy, we were seniors and we’d been close friends since freshman year. I had my jacket tied around my waist because of the heat. The school had two campuses a block apart and I was walking from one to the other to get something. Friend was walking from the other to the one, so we passed each other. Wordlessly. No wave, nothing. I was tired, it was hot, I didn’t really think anything of it. Then suddenly, a foot behind me, he freezes dead in his tracks and says my name with some kind of stricken shock. He had no idea it was me. At all. Keep in mind: my jacket? Tied around my waist. Not even off, just around my waist. Since then I’ve used this jacket thing to my advantage. Sparingly, I can take it off to sneak around. It’s like I’m invisible to people I know unless I say something and they hear my voice. It’s incredible. 

Going back to speed running, way before I knew that it was a thing at all, I taught myself to speedrun two games: The Lion King (PS2, not the impossibly hard one) and Putt Putt Saves The Zoo. As they were unofficial speedruns that I didn’t really call anything and just kinda did when I was bored, I never timed the latter, and I only timed the former once using my mom’s kitchen timer. It was a rough estimate since sometimes I paused and forgot to hit play for a few seconds, or I needed to pause but didn’t for a few seconds, and the timer only counted full minutes anyway, but I still remember the time: 35 minutes. I keep meaning to go back and re-teach myself to speedrun it, perhaps more professionally, and time it with more accuracy. I still remember all the strats but I can’t pull them off with as much fluidity as I could when I was still in practice. I also can, when watching both Lion King 1 and 2, still point out with frame-perfect accuracy exactly when a scene starts that was a cutscene in that game. 

wow writing this was fun and I kinda wanna do it again. ok 

[bwprowl]

It’s a more Good-Smiley week than usual, as I check out a few new figma and Nendoroid releases just up for pre-order! We’ll also see some fighting-themed backdrops, and a *serious* Sentai sword. All this, plus a desk that couldn’t escape the fiddly grip of Transformers for long, here on Tuesday Night Toys!

New Stuff: Wolf Inside a Cart

Never count out an older series so long as it built up a respectable fanbase to begin with. Spice & Wolf as an anime has been over for ages, and the novels themselves recently wrapped up too. But titular wolf spirit/business partner Holo is an iconic character too legit to quit, so she’ll be getting her own Nendoroid now, just up for pre-order. GSC looks to have put a lot of work into this particular one too, sporting such careful details as ball-jointed ears and an extra hat accessory to hide them. That tipsy facial expression is a cute touch as well. All this plus a cool pre-order bonus of one of the coins from the series.

If I was like, a business economics teacher or something, I’d have this on my desk

Good Smile is also running a bonus campaign in the Winter run-up to Wonfes. Buying new releases of select previous figma and Nendos nets you a neat little scarf accessory in one of six colors. They’re designed to work with *most* of the existing figures, though even GSC admits that they might not fit everyone. Still, if you were on the fence about any of these figures, now might be a good time to decide to grab one!

Premium Bandai continues its High Proportion Collection line of super-detailed but conveniently miniaturized toku toys with the Shinkenmaru from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. This gleefully gimmicky sword clocks in at only 190mm long here, but looks sharp as hell (no pun intended) and even includes a display base and six HiDen Disks with the spinning gimmick. I need more Shinkenger toys.

Wishlist: Off The Wall

I’ve made no secret of my enjoyment of Love Live Sunshine, the singing-schoolgirl sequel that surpassed the original in a lot of ways that worked for me. So while I was perfectly happy to just get Maki from the original figma lineup, I’ll find myself drawn to more of the characters from the next generation. Case in point: figma Riko just went up for pre-order, and I’m thinkin’ about it. Her accessories, naturally, do a lot of the selling, including the *adorable* plush shrimp that Chika threw on her face, and most importantly, a shopping bag holding her surreptitiously-purchased yuri magazines. That was one of my favorite running gags from the show, and the facial expression she has to go along with it sells it perfectly. I’ll keep this one on my radar.

The other figma pre-order in my sights is the Gravity Rush 2 version of Kitten/Kat. This is a marginally-upgraded release of the mold that was originally exclusively packed with the limited re-release of the first game, which I never got the chance at due to it being sold out *everywhere*. This is a cool thing of GSC to do, and it might be a good thing to finally go in on.

Big Boys Toys is putting out stage background cards to go with their T.N.C. Street Fighter II statues, and while I probably won’t be going in for the figures themselves (they ain’t really my thing) the backdrops are a neat enough idea on their own. Recreating the SFII stages complete with health bars, these would probably work well for any couple figures you might want duking it out in a display. Least of all stuff like those upcoming SF Figuarts.

Now they just need a way for the U.S.A. stage to play Guile’s theme

On-Desk: Seek and Enjoy

I’ve got a ton of nice, high-end toys I’ve accumulated lately, but I’m gonna ignore them now and talk about some cheap-ass Transformers I just bought!

Stormshot is a brand-new release in the RID15 line, in the just-out Combiner Force subset, and he won out over the other ‘new’ toys in the wave (Starscream and Blastwave) by virtue of being something completely new. Like, this guy hasn’t even appeared in the show yet, I have no idea who he is save for being a rad-looking jet Autobot.

I mean, the overall look of him is an incredibly interesting Autobot-type take on the ol’ Seeker style (that’d be the Starscream-type body), and that’s largely what has me so in love with him. Everything, from his thruster-boots with the tailfins on them, to the chest-vents, to the intakes flanking his head, all the way to the wings on his back with upside-down faction symbols, are quite deliberately borrowed from that classic Decepticon jet design. But the whole thing’s got a more boxy, ‘heroic’ skew to it, making everything its own. Even Stormshot’s color scheme plays like a ‘remixed’ version of Starscream’s, adding mostly white with red and blue details. I’d love to see more good-guy troopers using this mold in different color schemes.

He’s also got some really cool weapons: A double-barrel pistol and friggin’ shotgun, and they can combine together for even cooler action (he can actually two-hand the thing decently). They can also mount under his wings in vehicle mode, or combine and go under the nose there, OR peg into the back of the jet. He’s got a lot going on. Speaking of the jet mode, it’s pretty good-looking itself; I love the printed metallic details on the wings. This guy is such a surprisingly solid winner overall; though I might still paint in a few extra details.

I also grabbed Titan Master Sawback (along with Ptero, but he’s less interesting), and this guy’s on par with that Stripes toy I talked about a while back in terms of obscure “I can’t believe Hasbro made a toy of this guy”-ness. Being an update of former hard-to-find Japanese line exclusive Master Warrior Lione, Sawback is basically perfect as the type of subject for Hasbro to mine for this size class, and he works well at it. I love the way his head mode forms the back mane of his vehicle’s lion mode, or the teeeeeny little lion face he’s got in his lil’ robot mode. I even love his vehicle’s dumb flying-chair-thing mode, it works as a neat little private spaceship. And they did a great job on the design of his head mode itself, with the robot lion helmet surrounding it, and the face capturing Lione’s distinctive visage. After all that, the shield mode is just a cool bonus.

Oh, AND I got TR Gnaw, who might be the cutest everything-eating execution machine ever put to plastic. The transformation, especially the way it lets the jaw articulate, is just insidiously clever.

That’s all for tonight, everyone! You all have fun now!

[kidsworld512]

With around 200 countries and more than 7.5 billion people, the world is full of interesting, fun, and fascinating people, places, and things. In the land of the Kiwis, for instance, you'll find the highest concentration of pet owners on the planet. And over in Nicaragua, you'll find one of the only two flags in the world that features the color purple. Hungry for more facts about the world and its ever-growing population? Read on to learn some interesting facts about the Earth's past, present, and future.

In Which Countries, You Can not Buy Coca-Cola?

Phnom Penh, Cambodia- January 02, 2014. Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles stacked in plastic container - vintage style. Symbolic representation of one of the greatest business rivalries of all time. - Image

No matter where you go, it's comforting to know you can always enjoy a Coca-Cola. Well, almost anywhere. While this fizzy drink is sold practically everywhere, it still hasn't (officially) made its way to North Korea or Cuba, according to the BBC. That's because these countries are under long-term U.S. trade embargoes.

However, some folks say you might be able to snag a sip of the stuff if you try hard enough (although it'll typically be a lot more expensive than what you would pay in the states—and probably imported from a neighboring country such as Mexico or China).

In Which City, The Entire World's Population Could be fit?

The world's total population is more than 7.5 billion. And obviously, that number sounds huge. However, it might feel a little more manageable once you learn that if every single one of those people stood shoulder-to-shoulder, they could all fit within the 500 square miles of Los Angeles, according to National Geographic.

Beware of Chili. It Can Kill You?

The hottest chili pepper in the world is so hot it could kill you.

The "weapons-grade" Dragon's Breath chili pepper is so hot it's downright deadly. If you ate one, it could potentially cause a type of anaphylactic shock, burning the airways and closing them up.

"I've tried it on the tip of my tongue and it just burned and burned," said Mike Smith, the hobby grower who invented the Dragon's Breath along with scientists from Nottingham University. So why make such an impractical pepper? As it turns out, the chili was initially developed to be used in medical treatment as an anesthetic that can numb the skin.

Which is the Most Visited Country of the World?

France is a beautiful country, filled to the brim with delicious wines, scrumptious cheese, and tons of romance. So it's no surprise that more people want to visit France than any other country in the world, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

In 2017, the European country welcomed 86.9 million people. Spain was the second-most popular destination with 81.8 million visitors, followed by the United States (76.9 million), China (60.7 million), and Italy (58.3 million). La vie est belle!

Which Island is Name after Dogs?

It might seem safe to assume that the Canary Islands were named after canary birds, but the location was actually named after dogs. Although it's off the coast of northwestern Africa, the archipelago is actually part of Spain. In Spanish, the area's name is Islas Canarias, which comes from the Latin phrase Canariae Insulae for "island of dogs." World facts related to dogs? Now those we can get behind!

What is the Homeland of the Shortest People in the world?

Though there are short people and tall people everywhere, Indonesia is home to some of the shortest people in the world, according to data compiled from various global sources by the Telegraph in 2017.

When taking both genders into account, the average adult is around 5 feet, 1.8 inches. People in Bolivia don't tend to be much taller, with an average adult height of 5 feet, 2.4 inches. The tallest people among us live in the Netherlands, where the average adult height is 6 feet.

Where is the World's Quietest Room Located?

Silence is golden, as they say. And while it may not be worth quite as much as jewels and gold to most people, it certainly was the primary goal for those who built the quietest room in the world. Located at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, the lab room measures a background noise of -20.35 dBA, which is 20 decibels below the threshold of human hearing and breaks previous records for spaces that were deemed the planet's quietest places, according to CNN.

"As soon as one enters the room, one immediately feels a strange and unique sensation which is hard to describe," Hundraj Gopal, a speech and hearing scientist and principal designer of the anechoic chamber at Microsoft, told CNN. "Most people find the absence of sound deafening, feel a sense of fullness in the ears, or some ringing. Very faint sounds become clearly audible because the ambient noise is exceptionally low. When you turn your head, you can hear that motion. You can hear yourself breathing and it sounds somewhat loud."

Where is the Longest Place Name in the World?

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu longest place name in New Zealand.

People who live in Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill, Australia, need a little patience when it comes to learning to spell their hometown's name. But you know what? So do the folks from Lake Chargoggagoggman-chauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Massachusetts and Tweebuffelsmeteen-skootmorsdoodgeskietfontein, South Africa.

None of them have quite as much work to do when jotting down their address as those who live in Taumatawhakatangihanga-koauauotamateaturipukakapikimaung-ahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand, though. At 85 letters long, this is the longest place name in the world.

Which is Country, with World's Most Earthquake?

Earthquakes can range from minor tremors that are barely noticeable to building-toppling ground-shakers that cause massive destruction. But it's an inevitable part of life for those who live in countries such as China, Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey, which are some of the most earthquake-prone places on the planet. However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Japan records the most earthquakes in the world.

How much Bacterias are there on the Earth?

There are around 4 quadrillion quadrillion bacteria on Earth.

Not all bacteria are bad. In fact, some of those itty-bitty biological cells are actually good for us and aide the world in various and complex ways. And that's nice to know, considering there are around 4 quadrillion quadrillion individual bacteria on our planet.

Which is the Most Popular Name on the Planet?

Step aside John, James, Mary, and Jane—the most popular name in the world is believed to be Muhammad. According to the Independent, an estimated 150 million men and boys around the world share this name. The popularity is thanks to a Muslim tradition of naming each first-born son after the Islamic prophet.

Which was the Most Expensive Coin?

The 1933 Double Eagle was a $20 U.S. coin made of gold that never went into circulation. A few of the coins were made, but most were destroyed—save for nine that were presumed stolen by U.S. mint workers. After years circulating the globe and falling into the hands of a few notable owners—including the king of Egypt—one of the coins was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 2002 for a stunning $7,590,020. That made it the most expensive coin ever sold at auction.

Which is the Youngest Country in the World?

Some countries are hundreds of years old, while others can trace their nation's history back for thousands of years. But South Sudan in North Africa just gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, which currently makes it the youngest country in the world.

What is the Estimates of Facebook Users?

Do you use Facebook? If you don't, you're among a number that gets increasingly smaller every day. In fact, 2 billion active users have an account on the social media platform, which is more than the population of the United States, China, and Brazil combined. Facebook's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted about the milestone, saying, "We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together."

What is the Weight of the Entire Ants on the World?

The total population of people who are alive on Earth hasn't even hit 8 billion. At the same time, there are 10 quadrillion individual ants crawling around at any given time. According to wildlife presenter Chris Packham, who appeared on the BBC, when combined, all of those ants would weigh about the same as all of us humans.

However, Francis Ratnieks, professor of apiculture at the University of Sussex, disagrees. He says that while this fact may have been true in the past, these days "we must also remember that humans are getting fatter all the time. We're not just increasing in population, we're increasing in fatness, so I think we've left the ants behind."

How Much Types of Versus are Found in Sea Water?

The next time you feel like taking a dip in the big blue ocean, you might not want to think about the fact that the seemingly pristine water is home to almost 200,000 different kinds of viruses. While this may sound scary, Matthew Sullivan, a microbiologist at the Ohio State University, told CNN, "Having that road map [of what viruses exist] helps us do a lot of the things we'd be interested in to better understand the ocean and, I hate to say it, but maybe to have to engineer the ocean at some point to combat climate change."

Which Country is the Most Friendly with Pets? 

People who live in New Zealand seem to love having an animal companion around. That's why 68 percent of households in the country have a pet, which is more than any other nation in the world. Americans also happen to love furry friends, which is why more than half of all U.S. homes have either a dog, dog o both.

[athingortwoblog]

Wow! It has been an AMAZING year! There’s so much that has happened this year that I almost forgot that all of it happened this year. God has done so many wonderful things in the lives of each of my family members. He has pulled me further outside of my comfort zone than I ever thought was possible in only 365 days.

I’m the type of person that “needs” to know everything about a situation, especially a new one. I want to know what to expect before leaping headfirst. I’m not an out-of-the-box type of person. My comfort zone is comfortable and I like to stay in it. However, I’ve found that sometimes trusting God and stepping outside of my comfort zone can be a really exciting process.

Here are just a few things that have made this year amazing…

January

Our grandparents came to spend the new year with us and we took a trip to the beach for some of our favorite fish and chips. We also had a snowstorm and Adam built a HUGE snowball. He then practiced his archery in it and later chopped it apart with a machete. He had a lot of fun.

I joined a friend for a Mary Kay party and ended up winning a spa trip! It was pretty awesome! I did a live workout series on my Instagram which ended up being a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll do it again this year?

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February

Julia and I hosted a Galentine’s Day tea party with our girlfriends. We watched Letters to Juliet and played a game called Mystery Date. Dad sent us flowers because he was out of town.

We also rock-climbed for the first time at Rise Fitness. It began a love of rock-climbing in all of us.

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March

In March, we worked hard on the yard and garden. I got ready for the baseball season in style. The boys were great and helped me film a video for my YouTube channel which led to an injury and I never uploaded it. I also made cream puffs to celebrate 200 followers on Instagram.

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April

Our first trip of the year was to Florida to see our family. We spent time at the beach, ate some good food, and watched Shazam. It was a nice reprieve from the cold weather and it was nice to see all of our family again. We stopped in Savannah on the way home. It was my first time there and I absolutely fell in love!

Easter was quietly celebrated at home and we enjoyed the Avengers: Endgame movie. I went to my first bridal shower, as a bridesmaid, and met an amazing friend. It was totally outside of my comfort zone to go alone, not knowing anybody, but I gained a wonderful friend out of it and I didn’t regret it at all. Throughout the year, this friend – Heidi – and I have done so many fun things together and have truly become best friends.

Finally, I was finally able to use my spa day tickets and received a facial, massage, mani-pedi, and spent the entire day with a friend. It was wonderfully relaxing!

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May

May was a big month for me! It had been a long-time coming to celebrate the wedding of one of my dearest friends. I finally had the chance to be a bridesmaid and I honestly think that it was the most memorable moment of the whole year for me. It was the most perfect day and I was one of the first people to congratulate the beautiful bride and proud groom.

We traveled to Boston to visit with our Grandma, go to a Red Sox game for Dad’s birthday, tour around our favorite places in the city (including Boston Harbor), Plymouth, ate some incredible foods, and I even visited my favorite book store which is officially closing…so sad.

Finally, we got two of the cutest little baby animals to add to our family; Lulu the Guinea pig and Lola the bunny. Oh! We also set up a home gym for Father’s Day.

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June

The first day of Summer brought a 50’s party. Our friends arrived dressed their best and we watched an outdoor showing of Arsenic & Old Lace. It was a fantastic way to welcome the best season ever.

We discovered an antique store that I’m absolutely in love with. It’s like a huge maze of amazing items. Adam got a bird named Jose, I made homemade strawberry jam, we went to the beach with a friend, and we discovered a beautiful greenhouse cafe with delicious pastries.

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July

For Independence Day, I broke out the face paints and we went to see the new Spiderman movie; Spiderman – Far From Home. We hosted more friend get-togethers, one of which included a handmade water slide and an intense water gunfight.

I cut off my hair! I actually love it! Our uncle came to live with us for a while. Lulu grew two sizes and we ventured to the state fair where I got many compliments on my Trump 2020 shirt.

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August

August was Julia’s month. She turned 18 and graduated! I can’t believe how grown-up she is. I gained three beautiful students, we had family come and visit for the graduation, Julia and I gathered some friends together to go see the Dora movie, and our family found a new biking trail that we keep going back to.

Julia and I combined our birthday parties again this year into a 20’s soiree. It was fabulous! I went to another friend’s bridal shower!

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September

I’m 24! When did this happen? I celebrated by attempting 24 things in 24 hours…it didn’t really work out but I did get to spend the day with my siblings and watched my favorite movie (the live-action Cinderella). My sweet, dear friend took me out for ice cream for my birthday because she couldn’t be there to celebrate with me.

Julia and I planned a surprise, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea party for Adam’s 16th birthday. He didn’t suspect a thing!

We took Heidi with us to go mini-golfing at the beach. We went to 8 different mini-golf courses, visited the beach, and then got snow cones. Heidi got a hole in one on the final hole…it was awesome! Another one of our friendship meet-ups was to go rock-climbing. It was a great day!

The last day of Summer was spent on the beach (of course) and I purchased a Gilmore Girl’s t-shirt. One adventurous day was spent kayaking at our state park and then biking at the beach. It’s safe to say that I was sore for days afterward.

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October

My book was published! I received the official printing of my book and was able to finally hold it in my hands after a year of writing and re-writing. I went out for my first job interview and nailed it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job.

We went to the state park for some Fall fun. More biking and more beach time. Julia, me, and a few friends began our book society! We’ve already grown so close and I cannot wait to see where this goes.

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November

Our final trip as a family was to Orlando. We didn’t go to Disney, but we were able to spend some time at the Disney resorts and in Disney Springs. The weather fluctuated between perfectly warm and chilly. We also met up with our family for a day and rode the Skyliner for the first time. We ate some delicious food, saw MANY palm trees and Christmas trees, took lots of sibling pictures, laughed a lot, biked, walked, ate some more, and just had the perfect vacation.

I did end up canceling my book launch party because we weren’t able to sell as many tickets as we needed to. This worked out for the best, however, because I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving with the family. I did end up selling ALL my books anyway so it ended up not mattering so, so much.

The pastor of a church we love in Thomaston, Georgia passed away. It was a very unexpected and sad experience, but we know he is with the Heavenly Father. In addition to that, before he died, he was able to ordain both of my parents as pastors under the Hope of the Generations Church. It was a very special experience for both of them. We got our roof redone and I signed tons of books.

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December

One of my favorite months. We did a lot more than we usually do for Christmas this year. We went to a local play of A Christmas Carol and saw a musical performance by a choir and Adlan Cruz. They were both great.

Us siblings went to a cocoa crawl at the beach. It was so empty! It was fun to bundle up and get different kinds of cocoa and cookies from various businesses. The moon looked so cool that night. Julia did a small photoshoot with me to highlight my book for the holidays. She did a great job!

I was invited to do my very first radio show on our local radio. I was able to go in and interview about my book. It was out of my comfort zone but totally amazing! I shipped out the rest of the books I had on hand and was left with only 1 copy for myself. It was so perfect that it could only be attributed to God. I prayed that I’d sell enough to cover publishing costs and I did!

Mom brought Heidi and me to a gingerbread house decorating event (Julia wasn’t able to join us so Mom took her place). The room was full of kids but it was super fun to spend a holiday night with a friend.

CHRISTMAS! Christmas was wonderful! Because of the renovations we did on the house, the four of us knew that our parents were only getting us 1 gift each. They surprised me and Julia with tickets to the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway! I can’t wait! It was fun to finally see the reactions to the homemade gifts Julia and I made this year. I didn’t sleep very well (it was like I was a little kid again) because I couldn’t wait to see how everyone liked the gifts. We also partook in our traditional breakfast of bacon, sausage, cinnamon rolls, eggs, mimosas, and coffee.

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General Overview

I tried my hand at online dating. It was an interesting experience, however, not altogether a bad one. I met a wonderful guy that I almost dated (we were getting serious about meeting each other and had talked on the phone and through video call but it wasn’t meant to be) and a couple of other great guys. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up working out but I’m glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone enough to try it.

I was thrilled about how well my book did. I sold all 25 copies, was featured on the radio, and even inspired some other writers through an author interview. It was a good year for authorship. I even started writing my second book which will take place in the Summer (Independence Day). I’m already on chapter 3!

Looking back, God did so many things that have made me more confident in my capabilities as a businesswoman, author, believer, and person. He renewed my hope in people as they supported me and encouraged me; something I struggled with when I published my last book. I’ve done things I’ve dreamed of doing but never had the courage, I celebrated, I was positive, I dreamed, I learned, I taught, and I grew.

2019 was fantastic but I’m excited to see what God has in store for both me and my family in the coming year. There are a lot of things that I would love to accomplish but I’ve learned that sometimes God has other plans. So, my ultimate goal in 2020 is to have an open mind and an open heart to whatever God has for me.

With love,

Amanda

2019 in Review Wow! It has been an AMAZING year! There's so much that has happened this year that I almost forgot that all of it happened 

[thegloober]

I Ignored ‘Voltron’ in the Eighties, But Netflix’s ‘Voltron: Legendary Defender’ Rocks

As an 80’s kid, I was never into Voltron. The animated space opera, wherein a team of teens pilot a pride of metal lions that origami themselves into a space samurai, wasn’t for me. Transformers? Hell yes. Robotech? Sure. But Voltron confounded me. There was something off-putting about robot lions that combine to become a robot knight. For some reason, the fact that Voltron’s hands and feet had lion mouths was nonsensical madness to my young brain. At least the contortions of the Transformers excluded animals mouths. In fairness, this bias isn’t grounded in logic either, but the point is, I was skeptical as hell when my own children recently stumbled on the new Voltron: Legendary Defender, currently streaming on Netflix.

My thought process went something like this: “Huh, new Voltron. Do the lions still turn into a dumb robot? Yes? Okay, I’m out.”

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But one afternoon I came downstairs to interrupt my boys’ television time and was transfixed by the animation on the screen. It was some kind of anime-esque action scene with a suited character in a cool sci-fi cockpit. The animation was clean and simple, giving the sequence a sense of speed and intensity. The music thrummed. I couldn’t turn away. Then, I saw the multi-colored lions zipping through the air.  

“Is this Voltron?” I asked my 7-year-old.

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“Yeah! And that’s the red lion and they don’t know how to form Voltron yet and so the princess is shooting rockets at them,” he replied.

I blinked a couple times. This did not compute. The show I was watching looked really great. The art was fantastic and looked way more futuristic and slick than the eighties Voltron ever did. I actually had to pry myself away. There was shit I had to do.

But when Saturday morning came, I asked my boys if we could watch Voltron. We started on episode one and binged our way through the first season. (There are seven seasons available right now). And as we got deep into the story, there were so many surprises. 

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For one thing, Voltron: Legendary Defender is well written. Characters have a story arc that develops over time. As the team of strangers gets to know each other after being whisked to a distant corner of the universe, there are real emotional stakes. It reminded me very much of Avatar: The Last Airbender in that respect. But there are also relationships built between the characters and their lions, who are given a lot more agency and soul that I remember from ’80s Voltron. The dynamic is surprising and interesting.

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It doesn’t hurt that the new Voltron has some really great voice talent, too. A standout among them is Rhys Darby as Coran, royal advisor to Princess Allura. I was delighted to hear the voice familiar to me as the as the dopey, but earnest manager of Flight of the Conchords. In Voltron, it feels like the directors simply let Darby run. His Coran isn’t so much clueless as he is enthusiastic to a fault, and it fits the weird New Zealander perfectly.

And the addition of the comedian makes perfect sense because this version of Voltron is funny. Not just in a bathroom humor type of way that appeals to kids either, (though there is that). In a gag early in the first season, our heroes are struggling to form Voltron for a second time so they attempt to force it. The screen is split five ways as the characters concentrate. The music swells with excitement, then suddenly the camera pulls back to reveal the lions standing in human pyramid style in the middle of the desert. A lonely puff of dust blows past the pyramid — the anticlimax, disappointment, and frustration are perfectly timed and worthy of a belly laugh.

More than that though, the action is on point and there’s enough outside of the lions to make it feel like the Voltron universe has depth and mythology, making it an interesting and watchable show well into the later seasons.

The golden era of Voltron never aroused much passion in me as a kid. For my children, Voltron: Legendary Defender is decidedly not their father’s Voltron. Thank goodness.

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Voltron: Legendary Defender is streaming now on Netflix

Source: https://bloghyped.com/i-ignored-voltron-in-the-eighties-but-netflixs-voltron-legendary-defender-rocks/

[thomasjturner-blog]

ANIMATION PRACTICE CINE 1099 TERM 2

11 Seconds Club lip sync animations.

http://www.11secondclub.com/

I have been watching and listening to a lot of the content provided on the 11 seconds club to gather research and inspiration.

My first idea was conjured by listening to February’s audio clip from the website.

The clip was from the Adams family where Uncle Fester is being belittled by his impostor mother.

I then thought about how I could incorporate the degrading tone that was produced from the clip into an animation. Firstly I watched how fester was as a character in the film, he was very sheepish and polite and with a very fearful personality, yet on the contrast he has a wild sense of humour and little regards for rules. This made me think of how a child would act as if being scolded by a parent, That idea was almost to realistic and would not have been very interesting to watch as, so I thought how could I make the idea more interesting. I thought about how children act when they are away from their parents watchful eyes, and from my personal experience they are all tricksters and will try to do everything they are not allowed to do when their parents are there, this immediately made me think of a monkey, because of the bubbly personalities and the way children just throw themselves around and not get hurt. This then brought me to break dancing. 

First idea for the animation.

‘The Woeful monkey’

Reference material

Storyboard.

Script.

Intro

1-7 seconds. Monkey is break dancing, he pulls of some good moves and finishes with a backflip.

 7-8 seconds. He looks around to see if anyone had seen him, then he suddenly looks terrified.

9-14 seconds. His mother is acting up and flailing her arms and body in a way that makes her look ashamed of the other monkey.  She is talking down to him.

Mother-‘You only owe me your entire existence on this planet’.

As she is doing this the scene changes to a shot of the back of her legs and you see the boy monkey jump to the floor and spread his arms like he is praying, he then moves unto his knees.

Mother-‘Please by all means go sing dance date’.

14-18 seconds. The camera changes to a close up looking down on him from the mother’s perspective, he is on his knees begging her forgiveness.

Gordon-‘Oh mother, I am so terribly sorry’.

Last two seconds is of The monkey (Gordon) rolling on the floor with his hands on his head.

Task 1: Basic Character animations.

I created a basic animation of the fishes body moving from left to right to try and replicate a swimming movement.

Task 2 :Testing Emotions through facial expressions.

I tried to convey a transition from calm to menacing then to sneaky and back again.

Task 1,2,3 and 4 combined.

Audio for task.

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/august17/winner

Task 3 is to create a  Basic lip-sync.

Task 4 is to create a Lip-sync of a sentence that demonstrates (1) Foundation (2) Structure (3) Details (4) Polish.

The audio clip used is of a man singing about an immigrant who has been betrayed by his own people and his new country, and the singers confesses to killing him. The animation is to show how as he is singing he is using body language as well as facial expressions to convey his emotion as the murderer, but at the end when he his head is bowed in ‘remorse he releases a sneaky smile’. 

The Environment is just a practice to see what sort of things I can create in a short time frame at a fast pace. The idea behind the temple style crypt is to try and present that he is at the grave of the victim from the song, although it is not very clear from the screenshots.  

Idea 2.

Audio Research.

Possible candidates for second idea.

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/february09/winner

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/october09/winner

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/october10/winner

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/january11/winner

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/august12/winner

Final Choice for Second Idea.

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/november08/winner

‘You sunk my battle ship’

 Script.

Intro,

Establishing shot,

Stereotypical colonial admiral standing at the ships wheel. (evening time)

He speaks.

     ‘My purpose in coming here tonight is twofold’.

He then lifts his arm and displays two fingers to represent the number.

He then pats the banister of the ship leading to the deck and says

      ‘Firstly I wanted to aid this young lady’.

He then raises his arm again and holds both fingers up and says

       ‘Secondly I was curious to see-

Shot cuts to over the shoulder of the captain to establish the crew he is addressing

       ‘how a bunch of empty headed nitwits conducted themselves’.

Angry voices come from the crew and they begin to move towards him, Cut scene

Cut scene to a long shot of the ship where it is shaking violently and there is smoke billowing from the rear of the ship.

End.

Final Idea.

Script.

Intro you will only see the squirrel talking until the end of the Scene.

Squirrel.

‘So I can move into your spot? Start a training camp old school remember’.

The Squirrel is trying to convince the snail to start a training camp like the old days.

He doesn’t get the reaction he is expecting.

Snail

‘No, no no one has been in my house in a long time and I don’t think you would be comfortable there’.

The squirrel senses that the snail is getting angry so he has an idea to play with his a little. So he askes

Squirrel

‘What do you walk around naked?’

The snail falls for the bait and becomes mad, he thinks the squirrel is being serious about moving into his house. He wears the house on his back so he is infuriated by a stupid question like this.

Snail

‘NO!’

He is naked in his house but he is getting embarrassed. As he is a snail.

Squirrel.

The squirrel is baiting the snail more but he cannot control himself any longer and starts to smirk he is holding in laughter.

‘What then?’

Scene establishes both characters and ends.

Story Board.

Recorded footage for animation reference. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DMIRhki0nXVNzILWuu1LGS5UXT61Qm7e/view?usp=sharing 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QsGKynO9KltcvWFgM1S6uNN1GMj_URqn/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JML9mFvNQADUy_54yEopDIJKuOplj_kY/view?usp=sharing

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

All of the videos are of myself saying the lines from the audio clip it is entirely down to you to watch them.

I started off recording myself, and the result was unsatisfactory. I then sought out my flatmate who was trained by a voice coach, and she gave me advice on how to project my voice and to not put as much emphasis on my jaw and more on my lips. She then demonstrated for myself, after following her instructions my lip movements improved.  

Inspiration

Boy with the coocoo clock heart

The Secret of Kells

Thomas Ferson Deux pieds

Big hero 6

Cars

Over the hedge

Open season

Nut Jobs

Toy story

Corpse Bride

Caroline

The fantastic Mr Fox

 All the animations above have helped me develop my ideas throughout the term but I will only focus on the ones that inspired me to create my final idea.

The fantastic Mr Fox gave the idea to use an animal as my protagonist, also the way that the camera is always positioned towards the characters in a front perspective inspired me for the final frames to establish the snail.  

Over the hedge and open season were the most influential into my final ideas as they both have very strong personality’s playing as animals, very similar in ways of fantastic Mr Fox but the final design and humour is based predominantly into the more DreamWorks style of film, this is largely due to the style of characters I could source and partly due to my own preferences.

The Scottish squirrel army from open season had a large part to contribute to the secondary movements, such as the tail movement along with the eyes as the leader squirrel has very expressive movements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvfcWxGZv9M

Character animation

The animation was a simple process as I was just filming myself and others talking and then just copying the lip and jaw movements onto the character, I was very lucky as a had a very well made rig for my project it made the whole process a lot easier on my behalf.

The second stage of the animating was the body movements, these were a little harder as they take up much more screen real estate so they should be much more accurate.

Finally, I moved onto secondary movement, this involved blinking, nose twitching, tail wagging, ear turning and eye direction.    

Environment

These Images are not mine they are references from google.

The reason behind using London housing for my environment design is the fact that the houses are very unique in style and have a lot of culture poured into them. The next point is there are a lot of small park areas peppered over London and a lot of them bear the presence of a squirrel population. It is a very common sight to see squirrels in and around the park areas.

I started the design of the house using a single plane as I was only going to exhibit the outside of the model and not the interior.  

This is the final model of the house. I simply used extrude, bevel and translate to create all of the shapes of the mesh. 

The original house was built inside of Cinema 4D but then I reworked it inside of Maya

I was originally going to create the traditional yellow brick of London but I decided against it as it was too similar to the colour patterns of the characters. 

I started looking at houses around London. I went around the different borough’s looking at the housing designs.

I differed from the traditional colouring of the London yellow brick as there was a clash between the character and the environment. I needed the character to stand out from the background but still look natural there.

I was originally going to create the traditional yellow brick of London but I decided against it as it was too similar to the colour patterns of the characters. 

I downloaded the Image of the brick and edited the colouring in the material editor in CD4 I also used the image to create a bump map and displacement map so it would appear to have the proper depth of bricks.

I followed the process with the chimney, chimney pots, rubber roofing, pavement and roofing tiles. 

The glass texturing was very simple, I used a GGX reflectance from the CD4 defaults metal reflection selection then merged it with the Lambertian colour to create a subtle reflection then I added a transparency tab with refraction at a value of 1.517 to resemble glass and then turned the opacity to 39% creating a reflective surface that would absorb the light but also give slight colouring in the reflection.

Character.

I followed a very similar process to the glass when creating the reflection for the eyes, the only difference was there was no transparency added the eyes. The other anomaly was the pupil where I created another Lambertian but I removed all reflection to allow the rest of the eye to appear more reflective giving a definition between the pupil and the iris.

For the character I used over the hedge as my mood board essentially , I tried to create a mix from Hammy and RJ’s colour pallet, as they are very stereotypical for a squirrel and a raccoon and the squirrel character has a similar body shape to them both combined so it seemed like a logical thing to do.  

For the squirrels fur I simply created Lambertian colour and took away all reflection in the same way I created the pupils.

Different types of lighting and ray-casting depth.

Test render of vector style graphics vs realistic cartoon.

This was a low level light with a low ray accuracy.

This was a high level of light but a low level of AO, GI and Ray casting.

This is with AO at 100% accuracy but a low level of GI 

This is with the GI ramped up to high sampling but there is very little difference apart from the bottom image is slightly crisper and brighter and the top image is more saturated.

These two images were testing for the time of day. I was trying to get the right amount of length from the shadowing.

I set the physical sky to present day London. (it doesn't account for weather)

Render Issues. 

At first, I was going to complete the whole project in Maya, but for some reason I was not able to use Arnold with the Squirrely character, there was a render restriction on the rig, I know this because I tried it on several different computers and I rendered other OBJ’s on the same computers with Maya. So as a solution I learned how to export all of the animations from Maya into Cinema4D using alembic Cache, this stored all of the geometry and animations and then wrote it into CD4.  

Evaluation.

Throughout this project I have been watching many animated films to try and source information and inspiration to create own original content. Choosing the style of the animation was a very hard thing to do as there are so many different ways to create a realistic render, and each way will create a different mood and feeling to the final piece.

The final story is of a squirrel talking to a snail asking to live with him and set up a training camp in his house. I set the humour of the proposal from the squirrel as a little ironic as the snail naturally does not have a house or a nesting ground, as it can retract into its own shell and that is suitable enough accommodation for itself.

The squirrel is naturally turned away by the snail but the squirrel persists and keeps asking. The point behind this is that the squirrel might be lonely and cannot see the reality of the situation so he is seeking out help in places that will never be able to cater to his needs because of the desperate situation he is in.

The squirrel at first is sounding enthusiastic at the idea of starting a training camp, this is an inspirational thought for the squirrel but when it gets shot down by the snail, the squirrel turns to humour as a natural defence and starts to try and brush off the fact he will not find hospitality in the snail so he puts the snail into a defensive position to try and show he is unaffected by the rejection.

The snail is not introduced until the final shot, the point behind this is to try and show that the squirrel is actually alone and might as well be talking to himself, as the squirrel and the snail are from two entirely different worlds, one of them is very fast paced and energetic, whilst in contrast the other is very relaxed and easy going, taking the slow route through life. The choice of the snail as the other character is metaphorical for a hopeless situation, as the snail will never be able to provide the help and the answers the squirrel is trying to find.

Overall, I am not entirely happy with the outcome of the final animation, for example the squirrels left hand is very stiff and has very little movement, I could improve on this in future projects by taking into consideration that the body is never fully stationary. Although I was using a lot of reference material I believe I did not pay enough attention to the secondary movement as a whole.  Adding to this point in some places the tail the back and forth movement is very sharp and has little softness to it, I can work on this by studying more in depth the anatomy of the animals and how they move. Squirrels communicate with one another using the ‘wag’, of the tail, I have tried to implement this into the scene but I feel like I have not taken advantage of this theory. I have used the main tail shake in my animation to try to show that the squirrel is shaking off the rejection of the snail, because the shake occurs just after the snail says no. So this the squirrel recovering from rejection and turning straight to humour  as a recovery tactic.

I am happy with some of the secondary movement such as the nose twitches, ear twitching and eye movements. Next time I need to spend more time to clearly understand the realistic movements.

I am happy with the render quality as it is not realistic in colouring but it is uniform throughout and all the textures adhere to the same style, I have reduced a lot of the noise in the scene so there is minimal distortion.