#overall he’s iconic

[cruesuffix]

posting every pic of mick i have on my phone pt.13!!

(the fourth pic lmaoo he looks so sad and pathetic i can’t)

[femmeleatherface]

the love which i feel for the design of erik in phantom of the opera: the graphic novel. endless.

bonus:

[onionninjasstuff]

guys im losing my mind. his new drip sucks so much. donnie WHY. i love him

[batsplat]

following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face

partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone

[sillylittleguyinatrenchcoat]

geto meme batch bc i love one man <3 + this week’s episode broke me like a sad flimsy piñata

[akkivee]

the six rings: generosity-morality-patience-energy-meditation-wisdom

kuukou week day 1: buddhism

[orcelito]

minor details, but in chapter 68 of trimax we do see this bit:

the items that vash kept in his coat.

a "funbari doll" (which i cant find anything definite online about what that is with just a cursory look, so im going to run under the assumption that theyre some kind of collectable in-universe) & it's a red one, which is apparently rare. he still has the same pen radio that connects to his earring that's used waaay back on the sandsteamer. a swiss army knife, a random key, a used tissue (?), and...

a lighter? blow torch? i still cant tell what that last bar thing is tho. & i guess he had some kind of (normal) coin too? but Only One.

love the characterization implications for this lol. definitely the kind of pocket contents i'd expect from a silly immortal with a big coat

[rmbunnie]

I know Morrison's Batman tends to be considered one of the greats, and I am definitely warming up to it more than I did on my initial read, but there are still some elements of it I found really didn't mesh with me. I feel like I can say this a lot more concisely than I did during my initial readthrough of Batman and Robin 2009, plus I've had more time to reflect and actually form a coherent opinion that wasn't a gut reaction, and keep in mind that I've read Batman and Robin in a vacuum Morrison-wise and can't speak on it in the larger context of their Batman run, but aside from just. very odd writing of certain characters, I feel like one of the more significant things that rubbed me the wrong way with this storyline was that a lot of the "weirdness" I'd seen hyped up felt either inconsistent enough that it didn't have a significant presence for me, especially towards the end of the run, or very surface-level.

One of the runs I see hyped up as some of Morrison's greatest work is Animal Man, especially for its metafictional ending. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I expect that I'll enjoy it, or find it very interesting at the least (although author-inserts can come across a bit arrogant sometimes imo.) The point is I've heard good things, that it comes down to a very interesting and one-of-a-kind conflict in the end, which made me in some part hopeful for similar with Batman and Robin, (although I do have to admit I was reading it in part to see how off his Jason really could be.) I didn't really find that, tbh. There definitely were genuinely weird plot points with impact on the story which I feel were really successful, unfortunately it seems like a lot of them were at the cost of any prior characterization for the characters involved. Damian has steel implanted into his spine which allowed Deathstroke to control his movements and set off his emotional connection with Dick, Talia just had to be written horribly for it to happen. Sasha is a really interesting parallel to Damian/Robin-in-general. The conflict around her grotesque mask permanently fused onto her face and the fear that it'll kill her completely to take it off, the scene in which she gets said mask in the first place/the dollotrons, and the concept of a villain getting their own Robin in someone completely unrelated to Batman and the impact their legacy has had is all really original and cool, it's just that it's all dependent on a bewildering version of Jason that directly contradicts all previous characterization save BftC. To me the tradeoff doesn't feel necessary, but the events are inventive and have weight in the larger story.

In other areas though, especially as the run wrapped up, the zaniness that I see hyped up a lot, while providing a unique atmosphere, felt a lot like set dressing more than anything. In retrospect, the first time I really noticed this was the Professor Pyg dance page back in issue 2 or 3, I believe? But it became much more frequent towards the end of the series. The entire city becomes infected with a viral drug by Professor Pyg which isn't a major threat and doesn't serve anything in the story much besides being wacky, letting Professor Pyg say odd things about his mother sometimes and putting Commissioner Gordon... in a dress! Zany! (Professor Pyg is eventually... presumably?... torn apart by a parade of dollotrons and his narrative importance dies with him.) Alongside the Morrison-original villains like Dr. Hurt and Professor Pyg, there's a mysterious new player in town who's been orchestrating everything, and after a dozen issues of mystery it's the Joker, but wearing a mask and making edgy "differently-abled" jokes!

Dr. Hurt is interesting, and I liked his part of the story if I ignored the panels of auxiliary weirdness thrown on to add to the vibe, and I think there's something fun and interesting there about the legacy of Batman vs. artistic interpretations with his motive of ruining the Wayne's legacy (made more apparent with his talk about the Batcave being "the way it was meant to be in his head," the manor and Batcave "his to ruin," but Dr. Hurt kind of fades out of the story as Batman returns and is defeated by Joker, laying a banana peel on the ground. In the context of the theme of artistic interpretation and Morrison's commentary that they never cared to pretend the story was going to end with anything but a return to the classic Batman, I actually find this really interesting. A character heavily defined and reinvented by Morrison's writing being defeated by one of the most iconic Batman characters with a classic comedy trick from the 19th century feels like the conclusion to the contrast between Batman's legacy and the artistic license of the authors writing the comics: you can have your personalized elements, but the legacy of Batman is elastic and unlikely to be molded by them: certainly it won't be destroyed. Despite this, it didn't change the exhaustion of seeing the Gravedigger's mask come off and settling in for another comic where the Joker is gonna be doing classic zany Joker stuff.

As much as I'm frustrated with the way Talia and Jason are written during this run, I didn't entirely hate it, and the more I think about it, the more I find things I like. Some of my frustrations come down to taste, and are an unavoidable product of my personal taste differing from a pro comic author who had an established writing career while I was going to elementary school. I feel like some previous Batman comics were referenced in really exciting ways, for example the combination of Bruce's absence, a drug being used to gain control over citizens, an odd demonic presence, an imposter cult leader (If you can call Dr. Hurt that) prolonging his life through magical rituals, the background detail of complete chaos in the city, and one of the main villains being torn apart by a crowd of his followers, from the limited number of straight-up-Batman storylines I've read, felt pretty strongly like a nod to The Cult. But even considering the commentary on creative license vs. the consistency of Batman as a pop culture icon, the feeling of reading the comic was frequently that I was being convinced of a weirdness that didn't extend through the story down to the actual structure or plot points of the issue I was reading (with exceptions, such as the Sasha + Professor Pyg thing,) and although I appreciate the message of the return to status quo in the ending, with the hype of the story's inventiveness and uniqueness on my mind, it was kinda disappointing to realize halfway through that for all the weird window dressing, the story would be commiting to a much more traditional turn than what I was expecting.

[noxlumaris]

Tethys Deyalash

Ayyy it's the revamped version of my first OC!! I wanted to have a current version of his design for Art Fight this year, and here he is!!

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

forgot how good the bsd dub is 😔😔

[unproduciblesmackdown]

immediately obsessed with this pic posted by summer stock ensemble member hannah balagot, "Sunday grills with Will"

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episode 110 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 108-109 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-110: Tyranno Kenzan VS Fossil Dragon Jim

Jim Crocodile has noticed an outbreak of strong electromagnetic waves at the Duel Academia. Accompanied by Judai, Johan, Shou, and Kenzan, Jim decides to investigate in the jungle. As they do, some strong electromagnetic waves spring up, causing his crocodile Karen to pounce on Kenzan--and at the same time, the effects of the electromagnetic waves cause Kenzan to forget who he is and pounce on Jim.* This leads to Jim having a duel with Kenzan, and as Kenzan instinctively summons his powerful Dinosaur Monsters, Jim activates his Kaseki Yuugou -- Fossil Fusion Magic Card to summon his Fossil Dragons. *Worth noting that the pre-airing summary text here makes it sound like Karen biting Kenzan and Kenzan lunging for Jim both happened as they're looking around in the jungle, when in the episode proper, Karen biting Kenzan is what gets Jim onto the scene; wonder if that was the original idea in production...

[EDIT, 5/19: Episode reuploaded after correcting two of Cobra's lines near the end, and also fixing an animation error I missed initially with Kenzan's Disk near the end of the episode; details added below the cut.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*runs in to post this in Engrish*

Well, mates, episode 110 is now up and finalized! With Season 3 starting off with a couple of two-parters, I figured I'd take a slight breather and work on just 110 this go-round given the multiple two-parters on the way. And it's a good one, as we're introduced more to Jim Crocodile Cook (and his well-done Australian accent in the dub, for some kudos there to 4Kids [some dialogue choices for him (and Kenzan [that's not how Tail Swing works???]) aside]) while also seeing how quickly Judai seems to have recovered after his duel with O'Brien, and we see the debut of Jim's Fossils, which would go on to take a good 18 years or so before finally being printed with some buffs to them; it was always an archetype I liked. Kenzan also just spending a good 3-4 minutes growling was A+ (a shame the dub just made him talk semi-primitively, even if it mostly works), more of Jim's Engrish was just as good, and I liked how Jim and Kenzan came away with some respect for each other by the end after how offended Kenzan was by the Fossil Fusion concept. Fun times!

Animation error-wise, like with 108-109, I mostly did some quality-of-watching touch-ups around split-screens (with some of the fixes I did also allowing me to get rid of some of the ghosting in the footage), though there two card fixes I applied with Kenzan. Details below under the cut as always for the interested!

Quick housekeeping: in case you missed it, I re-released my finalized episode 1 work, as I went back and applied various card fixes that were bugging me and that I've grown to be able to fix, lol. Still shook I first started finalizing everything in 2014... 💀 Currently, I don't anticipate going back to re-finalize anything pre-84, mostly due to the annoyance of cutting/splicing stuff to get around not having the original unreleased scripts I'd keep with the ATK/DEF counter subs and whatnot thanks to a 2022 data drive failure, and hopefully it stays that way. 😅 I also applied a few minor styling fixes to the ending credit subs for 105 and 108 (noticed the text for a few names in the cast lists were scaled inconsistently) and reuploaded those; rereleased episode 1 has been posted on NAC, while re-finalized 105 and 108 will be posted there with 110.

Anywho, enjoy! I'll likely be going back to some TFSP stuff for a bit (in case you missed that news~) and then I'll dip into episodes 111-112 and Manjoume VS Amon; stay tuned!

Fixes/Edits!

As Jim first activates Fossil Fusion, we see the card first before he fades in holding it, but his thumb is missing as his fade-in starts, and then it just appears, fully faded-in, in the next frame even though the rest of him is still fading in. I fixed this in Sony Vegas by masking out his thumb and adding it to the first frame in which Jim starts fading in, then making his thumb fade in with the rest of him.

Later, as Kenzan thinks Dark Driceratops bested Jim's Skullgar, Skullgar turns around and defeats it, causing Kenzan some damage; as he reacts while his LP drop, Jim slides in on a split-screen exclaiming "Bravo!", but his split-screen slide-in starts with his split already about 50% into the shot. After that, Jim sets one card face-down and ends his turn, and as Kenzan opens his eyes and starts to growl while the split-screen ends, Jim's split starts to slide out the frame after Kenzan starts to move. Fixed the first in Sony Vegas by re-doing his slide-in to be more natural and start closer to the edge of the screen, then fixed the second by just removing the one frame where Kenzan has moved but Jim hasn't so that they move simultaneously, holding a frame once the split-screen's over a frame longer to compensate.

As #2 here leads into Kenzan taking offense at how Jim woke his dinosaur out of its sleep to use as a piece for Jim's fossil "freak," he says he'll make Jim pay for that as their match gets going for real; Judai and co look on as Jim and Kenzan stare each other down on a split-screen leading to the eyecatch (the split-screen here cut from the dub, likely for time), but Jim's split slides in unevenly compared to Kenzan's. Fixed in Vegas by redoing his split's slide-in so they both slide in evenly.

Later, after Jim uses Dowsing Burn to take out Sabersaurus, Kenzan reacts as Jim slides in on a split-screen to declare his Sample Fossil summoning, but Jim's split starts to slide in with it already about 50% of the way into the shot. Fixed this in Vegas by redoing his slide-in to make it slide in more naturally, while also redoing Kenzan moving in the background to eliminate the ghosting during this split-screen's forming.

A bit after #4, Jim uses Sample Fossil to dig up Sabersaurus from Kenzan's Cemetery to make a specimen out of it, and as we see its chains working to drag its remains up from the ground, we see Kenzan still has Sabersaurus on his Disk despite it being in his Cemetery. Fixed this first in Photoshop by cleaning up the Monster Zone in question on the shot's first frame, then threw the fixed frame into Vegas, where I then shook it along with the screen for the rest of the shot, also slightly zooming it out and fading it out as the transition from Kenzan into the dug-up Sabersaurus happens.

Shortly after, as Jim taunts Kenzan about his lovely Sabersaurus specimen, Kenzan growls in response; Jim then slides in on a split-screen to say that Sample Fossil's ATK becomes equal to Sabersaurus's, but his split again starts to slide in with 50% of it already in the shot. Fixed this in Vegas by redoing his slide-in so it slides in more naturally, and redoing Kenzan moving to again eliminate some footage ghosting.

A bit later, Kenzan activates his Treasure of Variation card, and as the close-up shot on it transitions into a split-screen splitting apart to show Kenzan behind it explaining its effect, each side of the split-screen jitters slightly in the frame before it properly starts to split apart. Fixed this in Vegas by holding the earlier frame over the jittering frame so that it properly splits apart in the next frame.

After Kenzan's next turn, as Jim wonders if the electromagnetic waves aren't behind Judai and co's exhaustion, he draws another Fossil Fusion; he smiles upon seeing it, but his smile ends up being slightly drawn onto his eye bandages. Fixed this in Vegas by just masking the eye bandages over it to keep his smile off the bandages.

(continued below due to Tumblr's dumb characters-per-block-of-text limit)

(9) After Kenzan's Brachion switches into Defense Mode from Jim summoning Skullgios, Jim is impressed by its 3000 DEF; Kenzan slides in on a split-screen to think that there's no way he can hold off an attack from Skullgios, but his split only starts to slide in the frame after Jim starts to move for it, and with it starting about 50% of the way into the shot. Fixed this in Vegas by redoing Kenzan's slide-in to start as Jim moves and slide in more naturally.

(10) As Jim has Skullgios pause its attack on Brachion, Kenzan looks up and wonders why, but as he does, we see that Brachion is on his Disk in Attack Mode despite it just going into Defense Mode. Fixed first in Photoshop as I blanked the Monster Zone in the first frame of the shot, then took it into AfterEffects to add a proxy in Defense Mode, and then took the fixed frame into Vegas to re-pan into the footage, masking in Brachion as it starts to cover the Zone up.

[EDIT, 5/19] (11) After Jim and Kenzan are drained of their Duel Energy, Kenzan shudders for a second or two before falling to his knees panting, but as he does, the end of his Disk (on our right) isn't fully drawn in for the five frames of movement that takes (each lasting 2-4 frames), though it comes back near the end of the shot. As noted here, fixed this first in Photoshop by using one of the initial frames as reference to snip out the end of his Disk and adjust it into place for three of the five movement frames, while I just painted in what was missing for the last two; once done, I threw the fixed frames into Sony Vegas and re-panned them to complete the fix.

[teddybeartoji]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh i just get so upset sometimes bc i don't know how to express my love and adoration in a way that isn't just "omg i love that" or "omg that's so cool" THAT'S NOT ENOUGHH IT ISN'TTTTTTTTT THIS GOES FOR ALL OF MY BELOVED WRITES AND ARTISTS AND FILMS AND DIRECTORS AND COMPOSERS AND CINEMATOGRAPHERS AND SOUND DESIGNERS AND FICTIONAL CHARACTERS AND POEMS AND STUNTMEN AND JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[darcyolsson]

also i got too distracted by the butterfly tattoo to realise this as i was reading it but i just realised that when maia is first introduced, she explicitly mentions she doesn't like to wear dresses and even goes as far to wear cargo pants to a formal event (the celebration at the end of CoG). simon also considers this one of the main contrasts between her and isabelle, who dresses hyperfeminine even when it's not exactly appropriate.

HOWEVER, then the next time we see maia at a formal event (luke's engagement party), she IS wearing a dress! at first it kind of struck me as odd and i just thought it was a plot hole lol but then i realised that after they found out simon was two-timing them, maia and isabelle hung out a lot and became quite close, meaning it was likely isabelle who got her to be more comfortable in feminine clothing :') very sweet

[bigboobshaunt]

Finished RER2! I'm happy I finally got to the end, after stopping late into it the first time I played it.

I find it and its predecessor to be really underrated, especially in the story department. It doesn't help that they never developed the massive bombshell that they dropped in the stinger to the true ending, and seeing how 7+8 turned out... I don't think they ever will, and that bums me out.

[groovyships]

I need to pet him