#so in my head dialogue plays out very differently because thats what i viewed for a long time and i dont understand why its so hard

[tigers1o1]

Hello FNC GUY!

I'm a big ol enjoyer of your works and was wondering if you had any tips on scene writing? I feel as though in my own writing I reuse names and pronouns too often, and I fear it makes my sentence structure redundant and boring. I've never done an ask before so I sure hope I'm doing this right! Anyways hope you have a good one, I look forward to seeing more of your works!! :D

I’m assuming you’re referring specifically to character interactions and dialogue to which i have a very good pointer actually!!!

So in my own writing, i tend to stick to the omnipotent limited (3rd person, but a specific kind) perspective. Which is basically to say i pick a character and the narrator knows everything going on inside that characters head and how that character is perceiving the world but its not 1st person and its not the characters’ thoughts directly. i think this is an important context to note for my pointer bc writing styles and the way you write character interactions can be very heavily dependent on your point of view/ perspective.

Now, one of the most common “beginner” techniques i usually see goes something like this

(Snippet from one of my wips)

Notice how little substance there is. It’s just dialogue and a couple actions. This gives your writing a really distant feel, like we arent actually in the scene with the characters, right? And what we want is substance and for the scene to contain life, instead of that sterile feeling.

And this is where the pov comes into play. For that snippet, I’ve chosen Lizzie as the main character (also note how that doesnt really show up). So to make that interaction have more depth, whag i do is i consider a few things

What is Lizzie feeling? What is her reaction to the words/interaction?

What specific details is Lizzie noticing about her surroundings and the actions of the other character? (If the main character doesnt notice something, don’t include it unless you’re using a different kind of pov bc in THIS, the narrator is omnipotent but they are limited, they only know what the character knows)

What is Lizzie doing?

I think getting into specifics can help, so long as you dont go overboard with them (but thats also dependent on your writing style)

So heres the actual snippet in the way i write usually

Lets break it down

P1- the setting is described, even if briefly. There is a descriptive quality accompanying the dialogue (rang out). Direct cause and effect, which ties the characters’ actions together making the scene feel more grounded in itself and connect than just a string of actions. Lizzie’s action is said, once again with a quality descriptor (laughed sharply)

P2- Lizzie is already the most recent subject, so using “she” here is less repetitive than her name again. I didnt say “she said” or “she replied” or anything to that effect because the reader KNOWS it was said, that’s indicated by the quotation marks; instead, try describing an action of the character speaking, or if its the main character, their reaction/feelings (which i did both here).

P3- “the other” is used to indicate that we’re talking about ava, but the subject (and main character) is still lizzie, which lets us use “she” again to refer to lizzie without getting overly repetitive or confusing the two “she”s in this context. Again, an action of the speaker is described to more realistically cement what is being said into the setting of the scene, and by describing the character’s action, it gives the dialogue itself more life than had it been the only focus of the paragraph.

So the big takeaways i guess are:

“She said” is redundant in most contexts, we KNOW she said something bc of the quotes. Instead, describe an action or emotion that accompanies the dialogue.

Make sure you know your narrator’s perspective /pov as well as tense, because the way you add detail will change

Pay attention to the way you interact with the world. What do you notice about your surroundings? How are you reacting to them emotionally? These introspections can help a LOT bc writing is a reflection of our own experiences, so if you’re noticing something about your environment, your characters probably would too

[fallowfield-moved]

i'm gonna be honest and i hate this fact but i think i learned most of my speech and vocal/social patterns from anime

[anonil88]

Malcolm and Marie live blog

I don't usually do liveblogs for movies but yea.

Spoilers ahead!!

I love that its modern timed but very 70s stylized.

A tune indeed.

When you are high and drunk on success and

How the white critic reacts is why I feel like gatekeeping my scripts. At the same time some things I do make are about race or involve.

Marie sitting on the patio smoking is a mood whenever men are talking.

So he's pretentious and unaware.

Whoever chose the music for this, I feel like we would be Spotify mutuals.

Can this nigga stop pacing.

Also can he stop talking;

Marie is so tired and unimpressed.

Also little booties matter and are to be bitten.

Oooo the tension and the jazz.

Title Card over mac and cheese.

Shitty boxes mac and cheese but still mac and cheese.

Tbh i always wonder if spouses/significant others get upset when their spouses don't acknowledge them during speeches.

John sounds so much like his dad but I really hope his acting style differs from his dad a lot.

Guilty confession?

He did not profit off of his partners backstory and then not even acknowledge her.....I.....

If that ever happened to me catch me cussing my partner out during the beginning credits, the end credits, in the car, and at home.

GASLIGHTER!

The way I'm excited for Zendaya to give me some, oooo can she work with Regina King. Please on my knees I pray.

Um no that's not your job to coddle your lead.

He's a dick and the type of dick who makes himself look like a good person around other people.

If Sam Levinson is trying to make his viewers more of misandrist, it's working.

I feel like Marie has her flaws probably a lot of them and we will surely see as this continues, but Malcolm needs to learn how to apologize sincerely.

70s vibes! 70s vibes!

Them kissing and talking about criticism and dreams makes me miss a partner. A partner that I've had and haven't had.

Women really are behind every great man.

Yea sir you fucked a happy moment.

Oh visual allegories for looking in from the outside and cat and mouse chasing and looking from the outside in.

She's saying she doesn't feel noticed by you.

Gas lighter :0 he called her an emotional support dog, bruh.

I would LOVE to co-write or take a writing class held by Sam Levinson. The fights i write are very much in this same realm of reflection and anger and monologue.

Sam.....sam.....are all the sides inside of you doing okay sir?

The ugly side of dating and being in a relationship with someone who struggles with their own demons.

Honestly I could close my eyes and listen to this script being read without seeing these characters visually. Just close my eyes and get a sense of these characters like it was a radio story.

Oh. Oh this is a new wheelhouse of Zendaya acting; a different voice is like breaking through here and her expressions aren't the same we are used to. You can literally hear another character in there....hmm.

Mans is outside really fighting with his invisible demons lmfao.

Selfish ass, how after everything she said you came out of it thinking about your own craft and self instead of how you hurt her.

So she's conditional.

Me: did sam (a white man) say nigga this many times in his script or are the actors adding their own inflections. Not just the lingo used but the topic of race and directing etc. being written by a white writer about black characters is always gonna be a critique when you're writer is a white person.

Alexa play Broken Girls by Saba

He is so hurtful.

A clown nigga a clown look in the fucking mirror you bozo head ass looking like you need some Mehron clown white and a size 16 in clown shoes.

John is doing a really swell performance and reading of these lines.

He is reading her for her insecurities by bringing up his experiences with other women and that.....is yikes.

Arguments can get messy like this in real life but it takes a lot of maturity and control to either not let it get to this point or have a healthy conversation afterwards.

This film is really shot on some very crisp lenses.

They sitting there like 🚬🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️.

Leftover Mac and Cheese and unfinished cigarettes.

The nyt etc. pay walls are so annoying, but there is a work around look at the articles on incognito or add a period at the end of the url.

He sounds like his daddy so much here, weird, this is the only part I'm eh on the dialogue it feels real but a bit out of pace in how they are bouncing off one another.

Nail scissors? So the end is not the only part he based off of Marie. 🙄

ITS A GOOD REVIEW YOU DINGUS but also its a full review they are going to critique things. She isn't wrong though he did profit off of a woman's story that was not his own to profit from.

Yes Malcolm because unfortunately all marginalized people look through a lens of life that is inherently political because of the world they live in.

He is so mad and upset and had a lot on his chest. But I think he Malcolm and Sam are talking about something thats an issue and a non issue. Being critiqued for you art is hard but also Malcolm is not super self aware. He's like a stand in figure of for example rich depop sellers who wanna be oppressed so badly they yell at others instead of examining their own personal behaviors and ethics.

Oh Marie, when you know the spark is gone and you pick fights because.

He ain't even ask her to read?

One critic I have for most of hollywood actors is they learn their cry and that is it. A change from this is Margot Robbie, I adore her fluctuations of crying being similar but the crying is carried differently for each character. If I had to say any actor that does a cry scene amazing its this woman right here (Amy Adams)

You stole her story from her and gave it away, she has a right to be upset and angry and a rubber band ball of emotions.

Citizen Kane, not the cinematography, but the story is it even that good? (Unpopular opinion but meh, maybe in my rewatch it will be better.)

But that is what people want authenticity and whatever authenticity means to them. What is real for one is false for another.

To be honest look at the criticism of Euphoria, well earned, but a lot of people were like this isn't real even though he literally wrote about his own life. People said it was inauthentic like....wtf.

Ahh the smoking is just a habit, he quit and she didn't.

CAST ZENDAYA IN A HORROR MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING. Get Lupita and Zendaya and some more black actors preferably less known ones in a horror movie. One with a interesting script and story, directed by Regina King. Please and thankyou.

I love Marie yep that was amazing.

Behind every great man is a greater woman, one that deserves her credit for how she has stood behind. I wonder the stories of those women, what they have sacrificed or not sacrificed. Their thoughts and feelings when the world is surrounding their partner and views them as a plus one. (I'd write a short script about this but I think do I have the time, can I, or am I equipped ?)

He is a shitty person for bringing up his exes, like she even said I don't wanna know any of that.

Imagine being on anti depressents and rarely having a sex drive and then when you do your partner starts talking about their exes and tearing you apart for all your faults.

I love when you see peaks of Zendaya's cadence in roles.

Tension, what if's and he didn't even bring her up in his speech.

Marie to herself and the audience:

He is not afraid that he will loose her but as my character says in my unreleased story, "i can't wait til you give me a fucking reason to leave your ass." Malcolm expects everything in order for not even doing the bare minimum and she is only asking him for something as simple as consideration. She just wants him to be considerate. He wants to get married and considers their relationship like rolling down a hill at full speed and he cannot apologize, he cannot be considerate, and he cannot admit his wrongs. He can only offer her I love yous that he probably does mean but he does not back up outside of what he's done for her in the past. The past which was more of her experience than his and he sees his part in it as a burden. He doesn't use his own vantage point of the past to further his career he uses her. He does all of these things without a real apology or thankyou because he is not afraid to loose her.

The restrictions of quarantine and the panorama have made Sam's writing very no frills. I wonder how other films from other directors and writers that are filmed in small contained crews like this will be structured. But this was a very good movie gonna add to my letter box 3.3-3.5

Oh shit this is my song,

Ratings/overall thoughts:

Script is like a C+, B- : I could go into my heavier big brain thoughts on the script but I don't feel like it. You catch hints of it above it centers conversation on race and privilege, mainly the writers and questions i have that won't be answered but Sam did make me grow disdain for Malcolm over a short time. Which is sometimes hard to do because im one sympathetic person but the sympathy i have for Malcolm is at 0. Maybe a 2 at some scenes but then it quickly goes back to 0. Some parts of the dialogue miss the mark or hit the are off balanced. While some of it like Malcolm's bathroom speech albeit mean is really strong or their conversation when he comes back from peeing really shines for me.

Performances: B+ to A- because they carried the script further than it could of gone with less talented actors. The monologues do well to showcase their current skill levels which are already high af and leave room for anticipation in where these actors go next.

Zendaya holding a knife: A+ with a gold star. That switch on and off and on is delectable.

John being a shitty boyfriend but following Marie like a lost puppy: B+ with a good job written at the bottom of the paper, Malcolm being nervous a frantic dialed up with more realistic nervousness would have sold me completely on Malcolm's anxious waiting.

Cinematography: A and a participation award.

The mac and cheese: A+ for the easy mac. Wish it was like Annie's or Velveeta.

Cigarettes: Participation award and their picture hung up for student of the month. Why the grill lighter? Everytime Malcolm opened up his mouth Marie was like sparks fly.

The music: A++ with a prize. Whoever picked the music probably makes good Spotify playlists.

[femboty2k]

Long post about something I think about a lot and that doesn’t matter to anyone else but me probably

I’m sure there’s a million posts out there on why good representation is important and good but I just wanted to talk shortly about something that happened to me in a recent span of a few months involving a character in a dumb game about collecting jpegs of anime women and hunky dudes with giant swords.

There’s a game called Granblue Fantasy, its an extremely popular gacha game/JRPG with a very large roster of characters and a lot of stuff to do as far as reading through character lore, fighting JRPG battles, raids, and basically playing VNs for character dialogue. It’s a pretty good game, and one of the coolest things about it, is it has (to my knowledge, I dont play/keep up with it very often) 2 canon trans characters. One is named Cagliostro, an alchemist who was born as a man but through extensive experimentation and some self discovery has since transitioned into a woman, hell bent on making herself as cute as possible. Fun right? She’s presented extremely well and is one of the game’s more fun characters. The second character is one that has become a personal favourite for me for many reasons, her name is Ladiva.

Ladiva is a part of a race of people called the Draph. The Draph are a humanoid, and pretty much human looking, race of people with their defining features being their large stature and bovine like horns and ears. This is important because male draph are usually much larger and more muscular than female draph (but its a horny anime game so who can say they’re surprised lol). Ladiva, as my discussion here makes obvious, is a trans woman belonging to these folk. Because of this, she’s both quite large, muscular(and more masculine presenting on the surface), and has rugged looking facial hair. The surprising thing about her presentation in comparison to how she looks, is that she’s presented incredibly well. despite her appearance being not as feminine as it could be (with Cagliostro even offering to make her a new totally feminine body only to have Ladiva refuse, stating that she should love her own body along with the rest of herself) she’s treated as what she is, a woman.

So why am I talking about this? Why am I putting my poorly put together thoughts on this tumblr post no one will read? Well, I am trans. I have felt a certain way about myself all my life that I’m sure most trans people can echoe so I won’t wast time waxing poetic about how I’ve always felt more feminine than I was “supposed” to be. My core purpose of this post comes from the fact that I am 6′2, nearly 300lbs of muscle/fat/body hair, and have had a full beard since I was 14. I am EXCEEDINGLY masculine, which has made my own internal struggle with my transness sort of difficult to accept. A sort of constant push and pull of wanting to just repress it all because I already pass as a man and wanting to work towards being who I know I actually am. Another factor is that I never felt truly comfortable with purely feminine pronouns. In highschool I went by a different name, and I used she/her pronouns and for a while it felt okay. But it was always just, okay. It never felt right on top of several people giving me some rather hurtful backlash for it and how it contrasted so much with my physical appearance. So I stowed it all away until about a year ago. I now have something that I didn’t have before, a truly wonderful and supportive group of adult friends who treat me like an adult as well and take me seriously. So through careful examination of how I felt i began trying new things to explore my identity. It began with me deciding I wanted to use they/them pronouns, this stuck and still feels like its the right thing for me along with the label of Nonbinary. However, slotting myself into this new label and finally feeling comfortable in an identity brought about new thoughts as well as new things to mull over in my head. Things like the fact that most nonbinary representation in media falls under the same category of a waifish AFAB person who presemts femininely if not androgynous, and how people like me are a vocal minority within the community itself even being excluded by a small portion of it. It was a new set of things to tackle and think about. But that aside, with them came the most important thing I asked myself, “am I comfortable with how I am now? Or do those thoughts I had all those years ago mean something?”

This question isnt easy. Gender is a strange subject and is different to everyone who experiences something with their identity, so I wont pretend like I have any definitive answers for anything because, there arent really any of those. The question for myself, boiled down to “Am I more comfortable identifying as transfeminine, or am I comfortable with just being nonbinary.” This question vexed me for a little while. It hurt to think about. A lifetime of bullying and being made to be ashamed of my body type and stature had made my confidence in myself rather lackluster. This made the decision more difficult. It would be easy to try and own a sense of pride in being a masculine presenting nonbinary person. There aren’t many of those in representation as I mentioned before, and at the time it made me feel nice to think that it was what I wanted. But those thoughts I had all those years ago did mean something, and thats not who I am. The answer I ultimately came to, was that I am trans, and want to present more feminine than masculine, because that’s who I know I am, and not just what I think would be easiest. So, to bring it all together, how the everloving fuck does this relate to a character from a gacha game? Well, when i first saw Ladiva I nearly wrote her off as a character that probably was used as a disrespectful  joke on trans women and how they’re viewed. She’s not though. She has an entire montra of loving herself and others for who they are and owning every aspect of herself, including her body. She’s not a small lady, she’s a large/muscular wrestler who, in no mistake of words, still looks very masculine, right down to her facial hair. But none of that matters, not her appearance, not her beard, not her height, she’s still a woman and she’s seen as one by the others around her because, well, that’s what she is. She makes it known and others accept, or at the very least, respect it. It was something entirely new to see something like this in a form of popular media, and in turn it gave me an odd sense of self confidence in my own current appearance, even though I do intend on changing it through HRT and other means (exercise and other health related means). It meant a lot to me to see someone who was, in at least some way, like me who was loved by the community of the game she was in. And it still does. In conclusion, Ladiva is a very cool character, and her existing gave me a boost of confidence that helped lead me towards accepting things about myself that I had found it hard to previously. Go look into Granblue if you like games like that, there’s even a fighting game that came out not too long ago. Thanks for reading, if you did, this whole post is long and kind of dumb because I’m kind of dumb. But I wanted to put it somewhere. Have a nice day <3

[awakenedfate]

Fxcked around and found the source of DMT.. The All Seeing Eye the same one on the back of your dollar bill above the Pyramid... with the cute caption "In God We Trust" Seems he's been around in this realm a long long time. Couldn't wrap my head around it and I bucked too unbelievable to be true but as I've studied others that have broke out of the Matrix not only is it possible...it's very True.

Obviously any sane person will refuse this ... I saw it and didn't believe it but if you dig a lil deeper and clear your mind it will make sense. The Desert God of Mesopotamia is Yahweh/Jehovah. Read the old testament of the Bible and you'll get an idea of his personality. Pay special attention to the story of Babel because it was THERE that we we're doomed to be lost. If you don't crumble to Fear then you'll realize He IS SATAN. I know the brainwashing tells you no your "Satan for saying that"... Hear me out.

If Christ came to this hell to save us Who was he saving us from? Who says Worship Me or burn in Hell? and if Christ is "One with God" then WTF point of dying on the cross? God sacrifice himself to himself makes no sense. But if ya wanna play this game then Who collected his BLOOD SACRIFICE? Was it the God of this World or the Creator of All?

Anyway this distinction is very important if you're to understand the Game of Life.. yeah the God of the bible will tell you he will bless you and prosper you if you only bow down and worship him but when you die he will hold your Soul if you do not know he is Yaldabaoth The Demiurge Chief Archon. He has many names but the Gnostics have a clear picture of who he really is and on my epic DMT TRIP (4 days of fractal Hell) I came across this shape shifting vyper dragon and by virtue of contending with him I became aware of his sheer Power.

Anyone thats done even a small amount of DMT will tell you that you see colors you cannot describe...that's because your not seeing them with your physical eyes .. you can't take pictures of them because they don't exist in this Realm...but they do exist in the next Realm. You perceive them with your minds eye or the "Third Eye" well in that realm it's easier to see a "birds eye view" of 3D reality and it's also easier to become aware of DMT Entities.

Most will tell you to Love Yourself and All others because everyone is a reflection of yourself and on a different step of Ascension... But some will try and make this knowledge unknown and confuse you and make you feel like you're not "worthy" of knowing. This is a scam designed to keep you in this Prison mentality.. Fear Not these gatekeeper's can't hold you back but First you must surrender to Universal Love... Not of the Cosmic Aliens that pretend to be God but to Universal Love of the Creator of All.

Do not be Christ follower...BE CHRIST LIKE. Do not go Above or Below to the Right or to the Left but GO WITHIN... Broad is the Path to Destruction (illusion of this world) and Narrow is the Path to Heaven (Know Thyself) All of us have lived here on Earth before and despite our arrogance we are de-evolving we are nowhere near as smart as our ancestors and with public education brainwashing us most think everything came out of Nothing because that's what they teach as the Big Bang Theory.

Anyway this isn't a new age feel good bs post... This is about the Archons / Demiurge that have enslaved humanity and dumbed us all down to the point that people will line up to have Artificial Intelligence implanted into them to think for them. My screen name has nothing to do with being "Woke" IDGAF about your political correctness... My Fate was to Discover God and it's a cosmic alien that made our bodies and our world (sure da fuk ain't from Earth so get over it) now I'm sharing this because it's taken me Years to discover it and I wished I knew it sooner but I wasn't content on just believing because someone said so... I'm too skeptical for that so I dove deep into DMT to discover what's up for myself and you should too because unless your aware of the outside influence on Earth you'll fall into the traps they've laid to keep people at War with each other.

Oh yeah just so ya not lost ... God and Satan are SAME BEING...it's a pimp game "good cop bad cop" The Creator of All is where our Souls come from and is where FREEDOM from Illusion exist...it's outside of Time and Space and existed BEFORE this Worlds God. How can you find this elusive "Creator of All"? Go within YOUR HEART it is your Key to escape the Matrix. Silence your internal Dialogue (ego voice you mistakenly think is you) and Be Still place your Attention on who was before you was trained to be who you are now... From the Silence you'll hear a whisper that will unlock your rusty cage.

I know I foolishly volunteered to come back here and help others find way out but it's hard when my message is ignored or misunderstood and at the end of the day if your not ready to understand then it falls on deaf ears and blind eyes .. which is cool so fxck taking the 3rd hit... Take the 5th POWER HIT with a IDGAF attitude and then it will be Hear me Now Believe me later... Btw it's not my job tell anyone what to believe...I'm sharing my discovery because DMT is a Helluva Drug 🤣 🤣🤣

[simplysparrow14]

“Shadows Of The Dark Crystal” Book Review

So, I'm going to say this write out the bat: I gave this book ⭐⭐⭐

And I give it three stars, mostly because it wasn't a bad book by any means, but I found myself really disappointed with this book on a number of issues. I felt that this book had really great potential, but it merely stays in the lane of “It's a first book in a series.” 

To sum up the entire book: 

“Shadows of the Dark Crystal”  takes place within the world of Thra, The home planet of the Dark Crystal. We see the gelfling empire thriving. Everything is peaceful, there are no wars to be fought, every clan is living their best lives, and they are prospering alongside their benevolent rules, the bird-like creatures known as The Skeksis.

 In “Shadows”, we follow a young gelfling tomboy by the name of Naia. Naia is the daughter of the clan Maudra, or leader, but she kind of resents her status of future maudra.  She once had dreams of being called upon to serve The Skeksis, these fair rulers who claim to be the Protectors of Thra, but her dreams were dashed aside when The Skeksis came to call upon her twin brother Gurjin instead. Because of this, she mostly spends her days training to be the next future maudra, to harness a healing fire that has been passed through the Drenchen bloodline for generations. 

One day, while patrolling through the swamp, Naia finds a visitor walking making their way toward her home.  Because of how thick and large the swamp is, Visitors are not common within the swamp, so she;s very on edge as too why this silver-hair, fair-skinned gelfling is trooping through the swamp like an idiot. Following the visitor, it turns out that the visitor, a Vapra gelfling by the name of Tavra, had arrived with a message from the ever-powerful All-Maudra, who sends a message that Gurjin has been branded a traitor to the Skeksis, and is now to be put to trial at the Castle of the Crystal. 

And then everything goes from there….

So from the get-go, I’ve always been hesitant about reading this book. It's mainly because of how deeply I would compare and contrast the TV Show vs The Books. 

I was very afraid that my high-expectations and Love for the show would taint my reading experience throughout the book, and thankfully,  for a majority of the book, it did not taint it. I found myself enjoying it.  but that doesn't mean that I don't find myself really disappointed with the execution of those ideas. 

As usual, I really found myself loving the world of Thra. The way the landscapes and locations are told is absolutely spectacular and i can see everything very clearly. The way J.M Lee encorperates “Clan Life” in the narrative is also wonderful--I absolutely love the snippets we get, like the drenchen putting their dirty food plates in small hanging baskets and leaving them out to get washed in the rain, or the Sprition having a small communal cooking fire and their relationship with the podlings is fantastic. 

The Skeksis were goofy and horrifying as always. and the climax of the book was very intense and action pact. The dialogue for the Skeksis, however, was very jarring at first, especially with the other Skeksis that wasn't the chamberlain. I'm so used to hearing that very lyrical, very quotable dialogue from the show. 

“All the better to hold on life, no matter the cast.” 

“All ready a solution lies within the Scientists very grasp.”

“We are the lords of the Crystal-- We have ruled for a thousand trine, and we shall rule for a thousand more--We are Eternal!

“I plant lies in the ground--Watch grow into Truth.”

“Two questions answer each other.”

“Gelfling have always been ruled--heads down, backs bent!”

The characters were quite pleasant--They did the job they were given. 

Naia and Kylans friendship was so soft and so pure. Just the way the two bonded and cared for each other really made their relationship all the more adorable. 

I loved the rivalry that Tavra and Naia sort of formed, it felt very pure to the conflict within the show, with them allking each other “Drenchen” and “Vapran” with such hatred and disdain. 

I also loved the amount of clan racism that was in this book. I loved the ways that the gelfling treated each other, with one of the most prominent encounters being with Naia and Maudra Mera. I love how J.M Lee wrote the dialogue for the scene--It was very passive aggressive in a way, with Mera basically telling Naia “Alright now, I'm giving you a meal and a place to sleep, but as soon as the sun rises over those mountains, you need to take your dreadlocks and swamp-smell and get out of my clan” 

But im afraid thats where my praise for this book ends, Now onto my complaints. 

So, the book is written in very short chapters, each with maybe 8-10 pages each. It makes for  avery quick read, but thats where one of my complaints with the book lies: There's not enough time within the chapter to fully flesh out the scenes. We do get confrontation on some scenes that come in later chapters, particularly the scene where Kylan explains to Naia that he himself experienced the same vision-residual echo as she had within the dark wood and their dreamfast,  but it wasn't enough for me. It felt as if the book was holding me back with the end of a fairly long pole. I really wanted to dive deep into scenes, explore these characters thoughts and feelings about whatever was happening, but the book wasn't allowing that unless it was directly needed. 

It absolutely felt like the Aughra and Brea scene within The Dream-Space where Brea was like, “Hey--What's wrong with the Crystal?! Why is it cracked?!”

And Aughra’s just like, “We don't have time for that! We’ll get there when we get there! No time for emotional scenes, we need to get this plot moving!”

Another thing that kind of ties up with my first point, is that while the Characters were good and they played their roles well, they’re relationships and dynamics were not fully fleshed out. Everyone felt confined to a role and no one felt fully able to push against those roles. 

One of the reasons why I love the protags in the TV show is that the writers gave them a chance to push against their roles: 

Rain is supposed to be a guard of the castle, this impressive force of strength and bravery, but in actuality he’s very much a coward and like what the chamberlain says, he runs the first chance he gets.  Throughout the season we see him learn from this fight-or-flight mentality, we see him lean to stand his ground and grow a pair in facing the skeksis. 

Deet is a happy little farm child who has a positive outlook on life, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't experience doubt and fear about her journey and her meaning to this big quest. We see her start to view the world differently, and in the end, we see her take a life, something she would have never had done in her lifetime (Granted she took the life of a diseased dodo-overlord, but given that deep is literally a sunshine child, she would have loved Skeklash, warts and all. )

Brea is a princess who loves to learn, she boasts about how she’s read certain books more then once and how she lives in complete luxury, but we also see her being a smartass. She’s manipulative and quick-witted and kind of conniving in the most endearing way. 

In “Shadows,” I never got any of that. I get that its a first book in a series and that as the books go on, the characters character-development will start to come into play, but I feel as though, at the end of book one, your characters should be at least a little bit different than at the beginning. 

In the end, Naia still felt like Naia. Yes, She discovered that the Skeksis were killing gelfling and yes her wings came in at the last second, but in the end, Naia still felt the same as she did in the first page. She had changed, yes, but not enough for me to be really be pumped to see where her character goes from end. 

Same with Kylan. He felt changed, but not enough for me to be excited for him. 

One last thing I need to say is that I wanted the background characters to be more fleshed out.Obviousl, again, I know we have more books in the series to go through to get some development, but i really wanted them to feel real enough for me that when they do come back in the later books, Im absolutly excited to see where they go.  I love Naia’s  family--I love Laesid. I love Bellanji. I love Naia’s little sisters. I love them all, but I wanted them to have more agency on the plot. I love how protective Bellanji and Laesid are of their Children, especially when this silver-haired stranger comes tromping through their swamp and just spits out, “Hey i'm sorry for bothering you during your lovely dinner but your only son is now a traitor to the skeksis and if he doesnt turn himself in we’re going to hunt him down like a nebrie.”

And both Laesid and Bellanji are like “eXuSe mE tHe FuCk?!”

But that also what bothers me is that they do all their negotiating and planning within this scene in Laesids room. There's never a time where Naia and Lakeside and Bellanji and her sisters are gathered AS A FULL FAMILY to discuss what the hell they are going to do about this situation. They’re only son, Gurjin, has just been branded a traitor to the crystal and If they dont bring him home and let him have an audience with the All-Maudra, they themselves are going to be branded traitors as well.  I feel as though with those prospects, the entire family would have taken a few moments to talk about it, instead of Laesid just going, “Okay Bellanji, take Naia with you when you go to the All-Maudra because plot demands her to go.” 

And that's where I think my biggest issue with the whole entire book lies. It fleshes out things, but not enough to where it really packs a punch. It never fully brings it home for me. When I read, I want to be invested. But with this book, I was invested, but not in the way that I wanted. 

Some miscellaneous things:

The Skeksis take Naia to a part of the Castle known as the All-Maudra’s guest Quarters. This suggests that the All-Maudra spent the night within the caslte, thus making it canon that the All-Maudra had seen a naked Skeksis walk the halls of the castle before. 

Tavra just causally popping her arm back into its socket like it was normal Tuesday for her. 

Bellanji flirting with Laesid while she tents to his wounds.

Laesin having (1) leg and being more badass for it

Gurjin being more interested in hunting in the swamp and wooing “Lassi-wings” up into trees for some fun times. 

That (1) podling definitely called playfully insulted Naia on her way to the village. 

Neech being best eel. 11/10 would fetch anything.

[necroissants]

Ok so here are my two cents about the Donnerstag 20:37 Clip aka first half of O Helga Natt and why I think this leads into Druck adressing Matteos mental illness (fingers crossed)

So this is gonna be a bit long but bear with me here! (or keep scrolling you do you, boo)

So at first I was mad because of the frustratingly abrupt way in which the clip ended, but that could be because the clip is one part of two. I also wanted Matteo to spend more time with his mother since we got to actually see her and him engaging as opposed to the OG but that too makes sense once you see what's actually happening in the clip.

If you compare the OG clip and this one you immediately see the obvious differences and similarities. At first (at least for me) that made the Druck clip feel disappointing because we expected the clip to include a reunion and for the focus to be on Even/David and his storyline.

But if you look closely at what's happening in the two different versions though it becomes clear why it's changed:

(I'm doing OG from memory here so if I get something confused pls tell me!)

OG 'O Helga Natt' Scene: Isak is in church with his parents - music is playing through the whole scene - there is almost no dialogue - we never see his parents faces or him directly interacting with them - Isak gets the text from Even, therefore bringing the storyline of uncertainty about Evens feelings for Isak to a close -the whole scene we and Isak seem to be in a bubble shutting everything else out, until he receives the text - a short while later he realizes Even might be in danger and he leaves the church to go search for him - he doesn't talk to his parents or says goodbye - he finds Even at the school and tells him that hes not alone, they embrace - End of clip.

Ok so now for the Druck Clip: Matteo walks into the church and sits down while the choir is singing - music is playing through the whole scene there is no dialogue - the focus is on Matteo at first, as well as the church walls and windows, we then get shots of his mother noticing that he's upset and leaving the choir to go to Matteo and hug him - we see Matteo crying, the focus is on his face again - The next shot is from a little farther away, we see matteo and his mom talking but there is no sound - Matteo receives the text from Laura - He turns around and leaves without saying goodbye (music starts as soon as he receives the text) - Matteo hopes David might have gone to his flat and rushes there - When he doest find David there his thinly held composure crumbles and he has a full blown panic attack (or the panic attack continues) - he texts David that hes worried about him and that hell wait for him at the exam tomorrow - the clip ends apruptly.

Allright so let's break down what this means!

While both clips are obviously filmed to be from the perspective of the respective protagonist, they have a largely different focus reflecting the the characters current situation and state of mind. While Isak was lovesick and sad because he feared Even didn't have feelings for him, he was so preoccupied with these feelings that the situation itself, which otherwise would have been stressfull for him (confrontation with his parents, his conflictions regarding religion and being gay) wasn't the problem of the scene. We aswell as Isak were is this hazy bubble until the text ended his lovesickness and the realization that Even needed him moved him into action.

In the Druck clip however Matteo is not in a state of uncertainty and confusion in the beginning. Although he misses David, he thinks he's going to see him later. As soon as he sits down we get alternating shots of his face and the church from his point of view. The stained glass windows seem to stare down on him. We see his mom noticing that hes upset (the camera is angeled from Matteo's perspective) and going to him. We actually see them interacting! The scene is about Matteo breaking down/starting to have a panic attack because of the place he is in, maybe because of seeing his mom, and her comforting him. That aspect, different from the OG, isn't numbed for him bc that is what that scene is about, and thats where the focus is. This is emphasized by the full-body shot of him and his mom talking. While in the OG the parents fall into the hazy background of the scene, here his mom is in focus and important for the narrative that is being told. Then the text interupts. And complete opposite to the OG it doesn't close the storyline but further complicates it. Matteo thought he was gonna talk to David tonight, there were no Big Unknowns at this point until now that David is missing. As Isak did, Matteo leaves the church in a hurry and apparently without saying goodbye. But while with Isak the reason for that was the new purpose and certainty (as well as some worry about Even) he got with that message, for Matteo it is that on top of his breakdown he now starts to panic because of David. The music that plays in the second half of the clip starts the second he reads the text and - symbolising his panic - drowns everything out. Different from Isak, Matteo has no idea where he should look for david and goes home I hopes of finding him there. When that isn't the case he really starts to panic (restless pacing, fidgeting, wrapping the pillow around his head to try to calm himself). And the clip ends there! There is no conclusion, nothing is resolved - just as is Matteo's mental illness! Notably David is very explicitly not in the clip. The text is from Lara, he is shown to not answer Matteo's texts, he isn't at the second location.

Conclusion: As opposed to the OG this clip isn't about David (or Even) in any shape or form, but about Matteo reacting to the situation. Druck is playing with our expectations of how the clip will play out, and reverses them. We were expecting this clip to show them reunite, to tie up the "drama" storyline, to reflect the events in OG! Instead it went in a completely different direction by (seemingly) only slightly changing the scene.

Of course this also ties into David's storyline and the (I think) most likely confrontation with General Neuhaus tomorrow, but them meeting tonight wouldn't really have changed that storyline at all! (provided he's showing up tomorrow)

So I think that means that they are going to persue the MI storyline after all because otherwise changing the scene like this just wouldn't make any sense.

On top of that it also takes away the implications of equating Even's Bipolar storyline to David's trans storyline, so yay.

[itneedsaying]

a complete gif tutorial

hi! so i was requested by @popalice007 to make a tutorial on how to make gifs and i am very happy to oblige! this will cover pretty much everything, from capturing frames to saving the final product. this is just how i personally do it, and there are loads of other ways to gif, and i recommend looking at other gifmakers’ tutorials to get a more well rounded view on how to gif. please continue reading if you are interested, and please like/reblog if you find it useful!

disclaimer this is going to get really wordy as i try to explain where to find things and how to do them and my thought process behind why i do them, but please send me a message/ask if something needs clarified!

also some of the pictures can be viewed in full size by clicking on them!

part 1: required materials and other tips

just another heads up, i have a pc, and while i believe most of this should be the same whether you have a mac or a pc, i could be very wrong as i’m not a computer expert and have never really used anything besides windows.

so the two programs i use are kmplayer and adobe photoshop cs5 portable. kmplayer can be downloaded for free here. i have the 32 bit version for windows, so that is what i’m going to be providing the instructions for, since the 64 bit version seems to be a little different. photoshop is pretty expensive, but thepiratebay has several torrents for it, and other downloads and torrents for it do exist. i downloaded mine quite awhile ago so i don’t remember exactly where and how i did it so it might require some researching. i would just double check the comments and instructions to make sure the download will work. there are also dedicated photoshop tumblrs that will probably have links to downloads.

if you are giffing a scene from a tv show, movie, video, etc, you also need to have the video saved somewhere on your computer/flashdrive/whatever. hd-source is a good source for tv shows, and there are tons of other sources. i download a lot from thepiratebay using a program called utorrent (i just use the free version) but beware because since you are downloading copyrighted materials it isnt legal, and while i have never had a problem, i have heard of people getting warning letters from their internet providers. you can also download youtube videos and videos from other places and there are lots of other ways to get videos that i won’t cover.

no matter where you get your video, you want it to be pretty high quality, since the higher quality the video is, the clearer and nicer the gif will turn out to be. most of the time you want 720p if you can get it. 1080p is nice and if you can get your hands on it without the video size being enormous you can certainly utilize it, but it isn’t a necessity and usually i don’t bother. anything lower than 480p can get to looking pretty grainy especially if you are doing full size 540 px gifs, but if you are giffing something from a convention panel video taken by a phone, for example, you don’t really have an option.

additionally, if you are giffing dialogue, find a script online somewhere or find subtitles. you can transcribe it yourself if you want, but if a character is mumbling or has an accent or something i like to be sure of what they are saying.

and finally, have some patience! a lot of the popular gifmakers have been doing this for years and have streamlined their process so it doesn’t take hours, but as a beginner it takes time to get everything right,so it is totally normal if you get to feeling frustrated.

part 2: capturing the frames

first you will want to have an idea of what scene you would like to gif. before i get started i create a new folder where i want the captured frames to go, and i name it something memorable so i can find it again later. kmplayer does also automatically create a folder called capture that you can use if you want. if you are doing a gifset like this, i would have 8 different folders and gave each of those gifs/scenes their own folders. 

however, the example i’m going to be using throughout this tutorial is going to be a dialogue scene, specifically this one here, just because they can get a little more complicated imo (plus i want to show how i use the text tool etc). if i’m giffing a scene where characters are talking, even if the scene is a long one with back and forth dialogue, i usually like to cap it all at once and put it in the same folder, and then i separate it out later in photoshop. you can also plan ahead and put all the different bits in different folders, thats up to you and your personal preference.

next i open up kmplayer. kmplayer likes to update pretty regularly and will let you know when you open it if it wants to update. it doesn’t usually hurt to ignore it if you are in a rush, but i usually let it do its thing and make sure i don’t also download whatever browser service, etc. it also wants to install. sometimes ads show up on the right side, you can close them by hitting the little arrow between the ads and the video screen

to open the video, click on “kmplayer” in the upper left hand corner and then click on “open files”. search for your video file and double click it to open it

kmplayer will then open the video, and if its 720p often i have to make the window smaller because it fill up the entire screen and i need to be able to see other windows besides the video. if i remember correctly when you first download kmplayer it isnt automatically set to keep the aspect ratio the same, so if you need to, hit the f2 key to open the preferences or click the lightning bolt on top next to kmplayer, and then click on preferences. under general and then screen on the sidebar, and then under general again i have my settings like so, and hopefully that resolves that issue if you have it. you might have to reopen the video again for that to kick in but i’m not positive. if it still doesn’t work try to google it. i’ve had the problem a couple times and the answer is out there but i’m no tech pro.

anyway, i then locate the beginning of the scene that i want to gif. you can click around on the bottom along the progress bar, as well as using alt+left or right to jump forward and back a minute, the left or right arrow key to jump 5 seconds, or the f key to go forward a single frame. every frame counts, and it is preferable to have too many frames and have to delete them later than to find out your gif will only be 10 frames long because you started capping in the middle of the scene, or because you stopped capping too early. i typically will watch the clip a few times so that i have a set idea of where i want to start and stop.

once you are paused at the beginning of the scene you want to gif, press ctrl+g to open kmplayer’s frame extraction window. click on the folder icon so that you can locate that empty folder you had made earlier. this is where kmplayer will save the screencaps. i then set my settings to png, continuously, original size, and every frame, like so

now we are ready to start capturing! click start on the frame extraction window, and then click back over to the video (this is why i make the video window smaller, so that i can see the video and the frame extraction window at the same time). once i’m back on the window, i hold down and/or tap the f key. kmplayer will capture the frames as you go along. the audio plays along with it albeit choppily which is why i watch the clip several times beforehand, because it can be hard to follow and is disorienting. you can also click the play and pause button, but, again, the audio tends to play at a different rate and it gets confusing, so for me frame by frame is the way to go. keep tapping f until you get to end of the scene/wherever you want to stop. i keep the folder where the caps go open usually so if i mess up or change my mind on where to start/end, i can delete the whole folder and create a new empty one to start over again. this process takes practice and is often dependent on what you are trying to gif and its not a big deal if you have to try it a couple times to get it right.

once you have reached the end of the scene, click back over to the frame extraction window and click stop. if you are giffing multiple scenes from the same video you can click the folder icon and select a different folder to save frames into and then repeat the process of finding the scene and capping it, or if you want to cap from a different video, you can open a new video and cap from there. then if you are satisfied and have all your caps, you are free to exit out of kmplayer. 

part 3: making the gif

now it is time to actually make the gif! go ahead and open photoshop, and if it is your first time you can play around and familiarize yourself with where things are. basic gifs don’t require a lot of the tools that photoshop has, and you can customize some as to what windows and panels are open. below is what my workspace typically looks like so that i can get to certain things quicker, but i will explain as i go along where the controls normally are found in the toolbar. also, if you hover over a control photoshop will tell you what it is and what it does.

to open the frames, go to file, then scripts, then load multiple dicom files. then find your folder of caps, select it, and then click OK to open

be aware that depending on the number of frames in that file and the size of the images it sometimes can take awhile to fully load. once they are loaded, you should be able to see all those screencaps as layers on the right hand side of the screen. if not, go to the top where it says windows and click on layers. i frequently accidentally cap a couple extra frames where the scene shifts and i go ahead and delete those layers by highlighting them (use the shift or ctrl key to highlight several at a time) and then clicking on the trashcan at the bottom of the layers sidepanel.

next we are going to turn these layers into gif frames! i have combined this step into an action that i use to automatically do this for me to save time since i gif on a semi regular basis, but the steps are as follows.

first, make sure the animation bar is open. if it is not then go up to window and click animation, and then it should open at the bottom of the screen. you also have to be in frame animation mode. on the upper right hand corner of that panel is an icon with four lines and and an arrow. click on that and then click on  convert to frame animation. then in the same menu click make frames from layers.

this can also sometimes take some time if there are a lot of caps but when its done loading there will be frames in the animation bar. in the animation menu click select all frames. then, underneath any of the frames, there will be an arrow beside where it says 0 sec. click it and change the frame delay. what you set it to can be up to personal preference. i typically set mine to 0.07 or 0.08 which seems a bit slow, but i find when i convert the gif to a smart object (we’ll get to that) that seems to speed it up a little so i’ve just stuck with it. feel free to change the delay if you find later that that is too slow for your taste. also in lower left corner of the animation bar is where you set how many times the gif loops. change it from once to forever. the controls to play the gif are also below the frames.

since i gif a scene like this all in one big long take, it is now time to separate it into separate gifs if need be. if you are making a gifset like this you can skip this part because you most likely capped frames from different scenes and gave them their own folders, so they shouldnt need separating. 

sometimes you have to get creative on how you split apart the scene, and there arent really any hard and fast rules. here are some things i like to keep in mind:

the camera angles - this is the most important for me. if the camera goes from showing one character to another, or from one angle to another, i separate those into separate gifs pretty much no matter what.

the length of the gifs - this is dependent on the size you are going to crop to, how much movement the scene has, how much color, etc.,  but i typically try not to go over 80-100 frames in a 265px width gif. they can be trimmed down later, but if it takes 200 frames for the camera to switch to the other character, don’t make that one gif

the dialogue - if there is a natural break in the dialogue, that is a good place to end a gif. you don’t need 50 frames of no one speaking if you are doing a gifset with dialogue.

how many gifs you are making/size - at some point you have to decide how wide your gifs will be and how many of them. if your gifs will be 268 px wide (2 columns of gifs) then you have to have an even number of gifs, and you will need to separate to account for that

going along with the first tip, i’m going to separate the frames by camera changes. i do this first so that way when i crop the gifs, i get things centered how i like. 

you can see here by looking at the thumbnails of the layers what i mean by the camera changing angles.

first, press ctrl+n to open a new blank image. if the preset doesn’t say dicom files, click on that menu and click dicom files, that way the new image will be the same size as the original. hit ok.

next, highlight the layers in the original that are going to be the new gif. hold shift while clicking the first and last layer that you want to be in the new gif to do that.  click on them, hold, and drag them over to the new document. they will probably be off center and/or invisible. if the layers are invisible click an empty box next to one of the layers so that an eye appears and the layer shows up. then click the move tool and move the layers around til the fill the document correctly. be sure not to stretch/transform the layers by dragging on the edges and corners. as long as all the layers are still highlighted they should all move at once.

next, scroll to the bottom of the layers and delete the blank layer. then repeat the steps to make frames and set the time delay and there is your new gif!

the layers for that new gif are still in the original document, so go ahead and hit the trashcan to delete them, as well as the now blank frames. continue opening new documents and splitting up the scene until you have a new gif for every camera change. the last gif i leave in the original document. i ended up with 5 camera changes so 6 gifs to start with

at this point i crop each gif. tumblr has a guide for image sizes, and the width is the most important thing to follow there. the height is really up to you. if i’m only doing two or four gifs i tend to make them taller than if i do 8 or 10 gifs just because it looks better to me. i’m going to probably end up with 8 gifs because a couple bits are a little long, so i’m going to go with 268 px as the width and 175px as the height. again, the 268 part is the important part to get right since i’m doing two gifs across. to crop, find the crop tool on the left and set your dimensions at the top. make sure when you enter your dimensions, it is in pixels/px and not inches or centimeters.

click, hold, and drag to stretch to create a shadow for what you cropping. i usually go as big as the edges of the image will allow, and then bring the corners in a tad, since occasionally i get a video that has a black outline and i don’t like to have that in the gif. either hit enter or the checkmark in the upper right corner of the toolbar to crop.

you might have to zoom at this point and resize your window. in the bottom left corner there is a percentage you can change, and now that the gif is cropped it will be small enough that you can set it to 100% if it isn’t that already. continue to crop the remaining gifs to the same size. after this i usually play through each one to make sure i have everything in the frame and roughly centered. if you need to undo, press ctrl+z or ctrl+alt+z and recrop or redo whatever needs redone. there is also a history you can pull up under windows, and you can use that to backtrack multiple steps.

next i figure out if i need to break up any of the gifs because of their length. with a gif this size i can probably get away with having more frames and i can trim them later, but if a gif has more than 100 frames i look and see if i can either trim it down now because there is a lot of frames without talking or movement, or if there is a natural break in dialogue where i can split it into two gifs. there are also times when the gifs are really short that you can sometimes combine with a gif before or after that one. that’s your perogative ultimately and what you think looks good but will fall under the 3mb limit, and takes practice and experience to get an idea if a gif is going to be too large. sometimes i go back and rewatch the scene to figure out where to split things up. i also keep in mind that i want 8 gifs for this scene and right now i have 6, so i need to create 2 more, whether i separate two gifs in half, or separate one gif into three new ones.

ultimately i decided to split my largest gif of 180 frames into 3 gifs because it has quite a bit of dialogue, and the other gifs are either already under 80 frames or can easily have some frames deleted out of it. between using the script, rewatching the scene a few more times, and trying to lipread what the doctor was saying, i decided to separate between frames 65/66 and 120/121 so that way they were roughly the same number of frames. the process to separate them is the same as it was when we had the big original gif. i selected the last frame i wanted to include in the new gif so that way the eye appears next to the corresponding layer in the layer panel, and this is how i know which layers to drag to the new document. for example, in the picture i’m moving frames 1-65 to the new document, so i select frame 65, then find that layer and select all the layers below and including that layer and drag them. then repeat the steps to make the frames, etc.

go ahead and delete the empty frames, as well as any frames on the other gifs you may want to delete to trim them up.

so now we should have all of our gifs laid out! my next step is to sharpen them, and i do this using smart objects, and the steps are as follows. (i also made this into an action.)

first, select all the frames and all the layers in the gif. if you deleted some frames but didn’t delete the corresponding layers, don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter and doesn’t affect the final product.

next, click on convert to timeline animation. this is in the animation menu where we earlier found convert to frame animation.

then, at the top go to filter and click on convert for smart filters. this creates a smart object and turns all of the frames and layers into just a single layer/object. this allows us to sharpen the whole gif at once instead of having to sharpen each frame one at a time (trust me that takes forever if you don’t have an action or do it this way).

next under filter again, then under sharpen, click on smart sharpen. this brings up a window with a bunch of settings. these are what mine are:

repeat this for every gif. look how much better they look already!

at this point, if you haven’t saved yet, do it now! this is a good time to save and take a break. go to file and then save. the format should be set as photoshop/.psd. i go ahead and rename the files too, for example, dwshades1 and so on. i number them too so i can get the order right when i upload them. with it saved as a psd, you could close out and reopen it later and the layers will all be there.

next is coloring! this is technically optional, but is usually the most fun part of giffing in my opinion, and i tend to find uncolored gifs rather boring and bland. this is where you can do some brightening, color correcting, make gifs black and white, and more! its time to get creative with those adjustments.

as there are so many ways to color things, and whole tutorials dedicated just to coloring, i’m only going to show the basics of where to find the adjustments and some of the different adjustment layers that i use most. my first step always though is to create a group just for the coloring layers. the button to create a group is at the bottom of the layer panel and looks like a folder. the button to the left of that is the one that contains the different adjustments you can make.

the black and white circle contains a list of different adjustments you can make. the two i like to use most are curves and vibrance. curves is really useful to brighten gifs and vibrance obviously adds vibrance. my advice is to just play around with all the settings, and look at coloring tutorials. a lot of gifmakers also have psds that you can download. you can either use them as is to apply to your gifs and credit the maker, or just study what they did and learn from it.

anyway, i went ahead and colored my gifs. here is a before and after look, as well as a list of adjustment layers i added:

in this case the before gif doesn’t look bad, but that isn’t always the case, sometimes they start out super dark and colorless. and i like the tone and colors of the colored gif better (you can see how much i like purples and blues lol). again, all personal preference.

whether you color or not, if you have dialogue in your gifs, the next step is adding it in! if the gif doesn’t have a dialogue or if you don’t want to add text, you can skip this next bit.

first, select the text tool on the left side toolbar, it looks like a T. next i choose my font, font size, and color at the top. here are my settings, the key thing is to make it easy to read.

there are more settings like bold and italics under window and then character. these are my settings.

after these are set, click in roughly the middle of the gif and start typing the text that goes with that gif. i usually start with white for the first person to speak, and then change to yellow for the second person and so on, so that way its clear who is speaking, but that’s up to you. when the text starts to go off the edge of the gif, i hit enter to start the next line until i’m out of text. otherwise photoshop will allow you to type right off the edge of the gif.

a little hard to read, right? that’s why i add stroke, which outlines the text. to do this, make sure the text layer is highlighted, and then click the fx button at the bottom of the layer panel, and then click stroke.

these are the settings i use. usually i only have to change the size from 3 to 1px. hit ok.

so much easier to read! also, double check to make sure that the text layer is above the coloring layers.

next, i want to move the text to where i want. select the move tool on the left, and first move the text layer all the way to the bottom. photoshop has it so that it is kind of magnetized to the edges. i then go back to the character menu and change the baseline shift setting to 5 pt.

however, when you click to a different gif it doesn’t reset back to 0, so manually reset it back to 0 before moving your text layer, then change it to 5 again.

next, to center it on the gif. first select the gif layer, then hold ctrl while you select the text layer. the order is important, if you select the text then the gif, the gif will be moved to center itself around the text. then, with the move tool still selected, click this button on the top tool bar to align horizontal centers. 

great! now save your gif again, and repeat all these steps for the text for every gif that you are adding text to. most of the time i type the text on each gif first, and then move the text that way i’m not switching tools a dozen times, but it really doesn’t matter.

your gifs are officially done! time to save them in a format that you can upload to tumblr. go up to file, and click save for web and devices. these are my settings, but you can play around with some of the ones on the upper right side. however, you want to make sure that it is a gif, and that it is set to loop forever. those are circled. hit save, name your gif however you want, and save it somewhere you can find it later. do this for all of your gifs.

the other thing i circled in the document size. tumblr does not allow you to upload images that are above 3mb. if yours is above this, you have a few options to cut down on the size. changing the settings on this window such as going from diffusion to pattern, or reducing the number of colors can change the size, but if you reduce the number of colors, you lose some quality. you can also change your coloring layers around, because making a bright gif with a lot of colors can increase the size. black and white gifs tend to be smaller.

the option i tend to go for if i want to keep the colors and quality, is to reduce the number of frames you have. its a little trickier to do in timeline mode than it is when the frames are all there, but this is how to do it. if your gifs are all under 3mb, you can skip ahead to uploading.

in the timeline animation bar, there are blue rectangularish sliders you can move at the beginning and end, as well as a triangular one that shows where you are within the gif. decide the new place where you want the gif to start and end, and move the rectangle sliders there, like so. one tick over does not equal a frame, so i use the triangle indicator to figure out how many frames over i’m moving.

then in the animation bar menu, click trim document duration to work area. this will set your gif to begin and end where those sliders were. at this point you can try saving again to see if your gif is below 3mb. if so, then save it! if not, continue to move the sliders and trim until your gif is below the limit.

so now all your gifs are saved and ready to be uploaded! upload them like you would any other photo post. i always save as a draft first so i can make sure they upload right and so i can look them over again to be sure they are looping correctly and have no typos. only then do i close out of photoshop. tag with the appropriate edit tags (for example, dwedit for doctor who) or tag popular blogs for maximum exposure, but be aware that only the first 5 tags count and will appear in the tags. post and you are done! congrats!

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogues - Meat - Page 5

[sharksfood]

spoilers for Ralph Breaks the Internet (Wreck-It Ralph 2)

SO i was going to wait to record my thoughts on Ralph Breaks the Internet until after i finished my homework but i cant stop thinking about it!!!

anyways, I saw RBTI on Tuesday night in 3D and it was AMAZING!! i mean, both the movie by itself and how it looked in 3D. i loved that they put in a nod to those movies that took 3D to the fullest potential with stuff coming at you from the screen, when Ralph was throwing the football into the air.

BESIDES THAT i LOVED this movie!!!! i’m no negative nancy when it comes to sequels and i had been wanting a WIR followup since the first one came out!

but to get the biggest aspect out of the way, i was not always on board with the plot of Ralph and Vanellope going into the Internet. when I first heard the movie announcement and the whole Internet aspect it didn’t totally make sense to me. I mean, I originally thought the gang going into online games was a good mix between Internet and video games (since WIR revolves around video games). However I quickly changed my mind, especially since they WOULD be going into online/mobile games.

My initial reaction to the movie as a whole was EXTREMELY POSITIVE!!! I loved how the animation looked, the fact that we got an introduction on what Ralph, Vanellope, Felix, and Tammy (Calhoun) had been up to since the last movie, and that everything including the arcade had changed in basically real time. That last part was a bit sad too, especially with how few games were left in the arcade and that it seems business was not as good for Mr. Litwak as it used to be. BUT this movie, especially the beginning, was like catching up with an old friend after a long time apart! WIR means so much to me and I was so glad Disney took the time to connect to those who’d seen and loved the first movie.

I’ll admit I was a little nervous with how they’d handle the Internet, especially for a fictional universe thats based on the real one, like WIR. I knew they’d have to create fake websites and video games and what not to fit the plot and because of licensing rights. I’m also glad they did this because if Yesss were the algorithm for actual BuzzFeed or YouTube I don’t think they’d let anyone forget that. plus that would be too 4th wall breaking in my opinion. and this movie did A LOT or meta/4th wall stuff. I dont think any of the references or hints or real-world tie ins were annoying or over the top, it was the right amount for me. they could have made everything fictional, but that would fail to hook people. it was the right amount of fiction and real-life.

that being said, I do think some of the things Ralph, Vanellope, and Yesss accomplished couldn’t work in the real world. What bothered me is that any video of Ralph showed him as 3D, like how he looks in Sugar Rush or in the Game Central Station. Yes, that is how he looks “inside” the games and from other video game character’s perspective, but does that work for humans? Maybe it wasn’t explained very well, thats all. WIR is at times a little hard to wrap my head around. But then again, not everything needs to be explained or completely realistic, since, you know, video game characters are not able to coexist in each other’s games or buy stuff from Ebay.

the new characters was SO GOOD especially Yesss, Shank, and Knowsmore (to me anyways). I would have liked if the new characters had interacted with each other on screen more (like Yesss and Shank are friends but you wouldn’t know that without each of them saying so). also the Disney Princesses were adorable and actually more plot-related than i thought they’d be!

the biggest surprise for me is how much importance the movie gave to Vanellope for being a princess, i mean, she got a song and everything! To me she never gave her princessship much mind, since she only wanted to be a racer. by the end of the movie she was farther from being a princess than before. but i think this was intentional and why we got the scene with the other princesses in the first place, Disney wanted to show that there’s no one way to be a princess. obviously Pixar addressed this with Merida, and I think Moana is a good example, too, but Vanellope really is the least-princessy princess. I’m also glad that they didn’t make her song or voice too cute/pretty, it fit with her character, personality, and dream!

the part of this movie that my most impactful for me was the message and eventually plot structure of how Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship was addressed. WIR means a lot to me is many ways, but the fact that romance or blood family isnt the main relationship dynamic is huge.  I mean, I can’t think of many Disney/Pixar movies that do this, and even those that do, friendship is just a subplot. Ralph and Vanellope becoming friends, protecting one another, even in the face of their differences is one of the main messages of WIR (the other being self-acceptance and following your heart). RBTI took this further with the message of how friends can grow, drift apart, have difference dreams, become too attached, and build negative friendships based on anxieties. I’ve NEVER seen this in an animated movie, and it hit me pretty hard.

so with anxiety in mind, I really liked how Vanellope’s glitching was utilized, i mean since she now has a general control on it, she doesn’t glitch out as much. the only time she does in RBTI is when she wants to or when she’s super anxious. its almost like a physical symptom of her having a panic attack. (on a personal note, Vanellope’s glitching was the main thing that helped me get over my fear of glitch, so that relation to anxiety and fear is very meaningful to me) but Vanellope’s anxieties were very different from Ralph’s, which is good! they both struggled with being accepted within their games in the past, and part of that still lingers, though now, especially for Ralph, it manifests in anxiety over their friendship. I really like the direction that Disney/Pixar has taken with some of their movies recently in that the main antagonist is not a villain, but rather an emotion or conflict anthropomorphized.

as for the characters, Ralph and Vanellope were PERFECT. Vanellope is my favorite and she was just amazing. Their characters were the right amount of the same from the first movie and different, since there’s been 6 years for them to grow. I’m also really happy that Felix and Tammy were in RBTI, though I wish they were in it more. I mean, this was Ralph and Vanellope’s movie, but most of Tammy’s appearances were just for comedic affect, in my opinion. They also seemed way different, but I guess that’s marriage? It’s as if their character-specific dialogue and quirks were toned down. Maybe after a second viewing it’ll make more sense to me.

My only other complaints are that when Ralph accidentally finds the comment section of BuzzTube, his reaction and that whole scene didn’t add much to the story. I think it was important, especially given Ralph’s past, but it was so short. Ralph seemed to have forgotten all about it after the scene ended. The comments and toxic parts of the Internet play a much bigger role than that, so I wish it was addressed better. I also thought it was weird that we didn’t get any clear context as to why Mr. Litwak got Wifi in the first place. I mean, I assumed it was to get an online presence for the Arcade, but i don’t think that was actually addressed. Of course thats a minor thing compared to my previous comment. 

The last thing I noticed is that the main conflict of the movie, the steering wheel of Sugar Rush breaking and how they’d need to buy a new one or Sugar Rush would be gone for good, was introduced too soon. I think this was done because there was so much content to get through within 2 hours, and I know that the main premise was involving the Internet, so staying in the Arcade would defeat this purpose. It’s just that to me it all sort of fell into place a little too easy and fast. Also, Vanellope feeling trapped in a boring loop of her game and other feelings from the characters in the beginning were told rather than shown. I know already mentioned that I thought certain things weren’t “explained” well enough, but I mean that like, both visually and through dialogue. With the emotional parts of the movie’s conflicts, I think those developed well once Ralph and Vanellope got into the Internet, but it seemed “presented” almost at first. Again, I only saw it once and its not totally fresh in my mind anymore, so maybe after seeing it again it’ll clear this up.

okay so as for the aesthetic and animation of RBTI it was GORGEOUS!!! I love how Disney/Pixar can take things like the Internet or your brain (like in Inside Out) and turn them into working cities/structures that are creative and make sense! I really like that Pop Ups are maneuvered by sentient beings like street salespeople, since the feeling of online popups and ads is the same! Also, the Dark Web being the underbelly of the Internet “city” and all the avatars are dressed like theyre in Incognito mode is amazing. i also LOVED the viruses, since they looked like gross, scary, creepy fictional bugs or visual germs (they reminded me of Osmosis Jones in a way). How the viruses functioned, at least the Insecurity Virus, made sense for how I think most people imagine computer viruses to act. I honestly don’t know how that stuff happens, and I bet Disney knew most of their audiences dont either, so they took some artistic liberties with that in mind. But the virus was a clever plot device because it literally detected insecurities, both in that Ralph/Vanellope were insecure about their friendship, and neither of them “belonged” in the Internet.

ANOTHER THING is when Shank and her crew had to fight the Slaughter Race players, the distinction between player and NPC was clear and funny. It felt very GTA to me. How they handled Slaughter Race in general was great, since it was obviously a violent video game, but they didn’t tone it down too much to loose that feeling. I think it would’ve been cool to see cars and buildings “update” like they do in some games, too. OH the way that the Virus Ralphs joined together to make the Giant Ralph and that they kept moving to make the entire thing kinetic was SO CREEPY BUT COOL!!! that must have taken forever to animate.  I also noticed that on the Giant Ralph the little virus dudes were like laying down or posed a certain way to give the impression of different textures or colors on Giant Ralph, which is amazing!!! the filmmakers and animators paid so much care to the look and feel of this movie and it really paid off.

okay last few things before I forget: all of the main characters were great examples of positive and negative personality aspects that real people could reflect on. Ralph felt so much more openly emotional and body positive than in the first, which for a dude character is great!!  Vanellope has always been a great example of a girl who likes “tomboy” or “masculine” stuff but still likes cute and “girly” stuff (i mean she obviously wasn’t into the whole princess thing but she found her own way around it!). Felix and Tammy in RBTI were obviously an example on how married couples can still love each other just like the day they met! Did i mention how much I love Yesss? I love her SO MUCH!!! she wore a different outfit/hairstyle every time we saw her, she was fun and smart and over the course of the movie grows to actually care about Ralph and Vanellope beyond their Internet fame. the MUSIC was fantastic as always, and I love Imagine Dragon’s song and the Julia Michaels rendition of Vanellope’s song on Slaughter Race.

Just like the first one, this movie was funny, heartwarming, emotional, and really fun!! I hope it gets all the recognition and love it deserves. I can’t accurately say if I like this one of the previous better, since I’ve only seen it once. HOWEVER I ma really glad that Disney has made a lot of merch for RBTI since the first one got barely anything. All in all, I loved Ralph Breaks the Internet!!!!

P.S. Did yall see the after credits scene?

[kiss-my-freckle]

My take on Red’s bloody Christmas Eve story.

Part 2 of 2: "It is he who slaughters..."

He made it a point to tell Pratt that this happened twenty years ago. And he’s been slaughtering all those years. As I’ve said in my first post, what’s learned and not learned falls into what Red told Liz back in The Courier.

“Let me put your mind at ease. I’m never telling you everything.”

I always view what is and isn’t said, and not just with Red, but all the characters.  He spoke of “them” and “they.” But he didn’t speak of a wife, and he didn’t speak of more than one child. From this story, all anyone can know, is that he has one child old enough to play the piano - and someone old enough to put logs in the fire, to cook oyster stew because little fingers definitely wouldn’t be doing that. 

He doesn’t specify “them” or “they” enough to know anything else.   

So “them” in “our” house. Two or more people living in his house, and he lived with at least one other person - his daughter. Although you could likely add the person cooking and heating the house. So... at least a total of four people should’ve been there on Christmas Eve, and I believe only one survived: Liz. It is my belief that Red’s wife and ballerina daughter were murdered in this house, and that it happened Christmas Eve of 1987. Had an adult survived this, he’d already know what happened that night, but he has no idea. At least - not according to his conversation with Diane Fowler. 

Red: That’s why I didn’t show up in Florence. It’s why I haven’t shown up in a lot of places over the years.

Notice the change from “That’s why” to “It’s why.” Not sure if there’s a difference, but thought I’d mention it. 

I’ve stated several times why I believe Red stood Pratt up in Florence. It’s all about Liz - that child who survived, but also very specific to this Christmas Eve story. He has to be there for her - he literally has to. There will be no running out of gas. It’s why he hasn’t shown up in a lot of places over the years. Whether it be there for her specifically, or whether it be pulling a job that helped build his empire. After all, the very purpose of his criminal empire is to keep him free and Liz safe, and he needed to rise above all those enemies in order to protect her. That’s his fuel, and it’s been driving him for 20 years. 

As dangerous as it is for Red to be in Liz’s life, he considers the danger already in her life even greater. Danger I can sense from Carla’s response, as well as dialogues from Red, Kate, and Katarina. 

His first order of business - having Zamani cut Tom open. This, despite having no problem with their marriage. Had he felt that much of a danger in her life back then, he’d have reentered her life at that point. Two years wouldn’t have made a difference with his power and ability. Extremely overprotective. Surveillance cameras installed twice - even while she was staying in his safehouse. His people keeping an eye on her, following her if need be. Intuitive, always using eye contact, always assessing her emotions, her behaviors. He knows when something is wrong. 

Red stood Pratt up in Florence because he was putting things in motion to turn himself in. Twenty years building an empire, and he was ready to put it to full use. 

“Circumstances have changed, Donald. If you can’t save her, you’re of no use whatsoever. Look at me. Look at me! Agent Keen will die....

Now is the time!”

The scene in Requiem, when he’s about to turn himself into the FBI. It’s as if Garrick has that gun to her head. Better yet, it’s as if he’s at the door of his Takoma Park house... already knowing what’s on the other side. Nothing will stop him from walking through those doors. Because he saw something... something that made him drop everything, and it drove him there.

Red: As I feared would happen, elements from Katarina’s past are circling Elizabeth like a pack of wolves in the night. I put Tom Keen in her life to keep an eye on her, and he married her.

I’ve taken notice to the order given the verb tense. Present, then past. He spoke of those elements circling her, then of Tom having married her. Red is saying this is about Tom, he simply doesn’t want Kate to know what it is about Tom thats got him ready to turn himself in. Tom marrying her... that comes off to me as an excuse.

The things people don’t say.

[johnnythirteenguns]

just seen justice league (this isnt spoiler free at all)

also went to thor: ragnarok for the third time to wash the taste out.

so i went to go see it for miller, momoa, and mera in that order. i was super impressed with mera. i thought they were gonna go the like easy way and give her an Accent like the amazons, but they didnt. even though her cadence was different like idk man i know very little about dc but i picked up a one-shot earlier this year where mera neatly beats the fuck out of the justice league on her own and she’s a semi-jerk who kind of hates surface dwellers and you know what for the thirty seconds we had her onscreen i believed it and she was powerful and felt like a character with backstory and i COMPLETELY didnt hear what aquaman was saying i just heard her side of the conversation

man ben affleck really doesnt wanna be here huh anyway we should recast him at the earliest convenience

also why was batman 90% CGI like fine i get it no one can be a gymnast in a 50 lb rubber suit but like every single one of his moves that required any bending had to have been cgi

speaking of which the cgi isnt like bad in and of itself it’s just typical like it’s the cgi youre used to seeing. it doesnt blend seamlessly into anything and the characters dont blend seamlessly into it. the cornfield looks fake as can fucking be and i dont really know why? what else there was another fucking weird cgi moment. anyway, steppenwolf is ugly as sin and has no emotion and is all one color and is??? generally weird looking

speaking of which. he is not frightening at all. the New Gods isnt something casual dc fans are gonna be familiar with (i am barely familiar with it) and like? apparently, darkseid was supposed to have scenes in this but didnt? anyway go see thor ragnarok which features 1) a horned villain that is legitimately terrifying and powerful, that you fully believe can do the things she does, and who is beautifully designed and 2) features glow-y eyed masses of disposable soldiers that are cool but goofy and dont take themselves too seriously but were still frightening and made for thrilling fights because you believed they could actually pose a threat to the characters they were attacking

the beginning... uh i think like three scenes of the film looked pretty good, but they looked like cutscenes. very GOOD cutscenes, but honestly... if i wanted it to look like this id have played... a video game. like, i want it to look like a real place even if it’s heavily stylized. uh but the first showdown where batman is luring a parademon out looks beautiful if fake as shit. the scene with wondy in the bank (which features a group of girls from an all-girls school... at a bank?) and terrorists wearing cheap pinstripe suits (like, this is fine! it’s nonsensical and stupid but fine it’s a comic book movie) was kind of cool because for once i felt like... maybe diana was a creative person who goes in wit ha strategy? like picking the dude up with the lasso and holding him up was fun i was like oh!!! thats not something a typical movie would do! it was the first time she felt like Wonder Woman to me (ive seen the wondy movie itself, it was... eh). uh and idk what was up with the standing on the scales of justice or whatever idk the hilarity of gal gadot on that statue which sits on top of a bank like. it was funny.

hey question what the uh... fuck was the “what are you” “a believer” line about it made zero sense in context at all

dont quote me on the order of scenes i dont remember fuck all of this movie in order because literally, the pacing was so weird. so... it was very obvious there were parts missing from the movie. not like, cuts made where you could be like oh there was something there or maybe there'll be a deleted scene no like you Knew there was stuff that was necessary that was gone. the football scenes with victor from the trailers were gone!!! i think the movie was trying to set up a really strong friendship with wonder woman and cyborg but it never really went anywhere? and i suspect because it all got cut! and i dont understand why because ray did a really good job and he sold cyborg to me so well i loved his take! 

also... i dont know if theyre saving it for the aquaman movie next year but did Arthur get a bunch of his stuff cut too? because i like jason momoa, and i like his arthur and so im sort of torn because, like, he didnt have much to do. like, he has the bit where he sits on wonder woman’s lasso of thruth and tells them all this stuff but you dont know enough about him for any of it to land? but i really wanted to know more (at some point i did give up on, this was a very passive viewing experience). my friend was saying that like literally why did they try to make arthur so Cool he’s already jason momoa he is by default cool now you can do whatever you want with him we’re all going to love him.

speaking of the lasso scene... was the entire last half of the movie re-writen and re-shot by whedon because like? the lasso scene is a whedon. the bit at the end where wondy goes “children. i work with children” is a whedon (THERE’S NO REASON FOR HER TO SAY THIS? I THINK THIS WHEN SHE HAS TWO TEAM MEMBERS LIKE LAYING ON THE GROUND AFTER NEARLY BEING BLON UP? IT WAS FUCKING WEIRD). i genuinely cant tell if all of barry’s dialogue was written by whedon or if that was ezra improvising but uh... man he’s... he needs to practice if that’s hm. if it’s just whedon i mean fine but he also doesnt have the shitty RDJ quality thats let’s him say those lines with believability.

speaking of which, going to see barry was my priority because apparently im gay for miller rn so like. uh. man he wasnt funny like there were a couple parts where he was cute and the line landed and it was fine but generally he just... wasnt funny? because the movie wasnt funny? like... idk man ezra really acting his heart out and ive said like cool i wanna follow his career and see if he does good stuff and gets even better at his stupid art but maybe he peaked with credence barebone i dont know. the first scene where we meet barry, with the flash pad and the pizza, that was good, that was funny. the bit at the prison was good. he has very soft eyes and thats nice. the panic attack is cute in the clip and the beginning like rhrgrh moment he has is good but then idk the pacing falls apart again

why is his character like this? i just dont think ezra’s... funny enough yet. (tbh i think he takes it too seriously even if he’s trying to be light-hearted man sometimes jokes is just jokes). there’s a bit where theyre digging up superman’s body and it’s JUST HIM AND CYBORG FOR UH? SOME REASON? maybe they explained why they sent the two babies but i didnt hear it and it’s literally just them two. and he tries to fistbump victor but vic is like “no” and tbh barry is annoying? like maybe u think he’s cute and an audience member but he’s uh... you can tell he’s annoying in the story and anyway then the flash says “right, racially charged” ABOUT A FISTBUMP? WHICH? LITERALLY MADE NO SENSE? WAS THIS LINE IMPROVISED? WAS IT WRITTEN? IM GONNA PUT MONEY ON IMPROVISED BECAUSE HE IS EXACTLY THAT KIND OF STUPID BITCH

if they were breaking into the lab why even bother going through the front door? barry drives the thing in (theyre trying to smuggle superman’s body into star labs) disguised a soldier (the literally most unconvincing thing, not to me as an audience member, because it was cute and funny to me,, but that a guy with THAT FACE is military like yeah sure, why did that guard believe him) but then they get to like the normal ass parking inside and the other three are standing there in full costume in full grey DC-brand daylight? are you telling me between 5/6ths of the justice league they couldnt sneak in a fucking pine box when wonder woman can lift a fucking tank on her own? like.

speaking of which uh.... superman is stupidly overpowered. like i said i read an issue of JL where mera hands every one of the justice league members their own gently roasted ass in hand on her fucking own. diana regularly kicks superman in the head. why was she not able to take him down? when theyre fighting steppenwolf for real it’s not until superman shows up that they even have a real fighting chance. they dont fight as team, they dont even fight as people casually unified in a common cause. theyre playing high-stakes legos and cyborg gets pulled away from them like three times?? and it gets fucking annoying? and then supes shows up and literally wipes the floor with him. it is so completely bizarre and stupid.

here’s a problem i still have with wonder woman: why is she so thin? the other amazons (except Hippolyta and maybe one other one) look built as FUCK? LIKE THESE WOMEN COULD EASILY TOSS ME ACROSS THE ROOM. wonder woman has serious fucking arms, where are they

also those amazon bikinis were bad. the whole styling of this movie is bad, but especially the amazons. everything is red and gold, for some reasons? the outfits dont looks heavy like armor, they look heavy like bullshit material. there is no reason for the fucking bikinis. the gold cloak hippolyta wears is??? heavy and looks like? like drapes like window dressing like thats the weight of it. additionally, there is no reason for their hair to be SO STYLED. it’s really like prom night hair it’s like shiny and muss free and always loose and in perfect clearly salon-styled curls. also, why are they so heavily made up? it’s really prominent. wondy herself has the same issue going on, she looks much more heavily made up (why is everyone’s blush so PINK, like it's distracting, is this a side effect of the recoloring process) and her hair isnt loose and doing its thing like in BVS or Wonder Woman it’s like... idk she looks really. Pretty when she’s on the field and it makes no sense.

the amazon fighting style is still ugly and makes no sense ive never seen such a wasteful fighting style it made sense exactly once during Wonder Woman

why is themyscira entirely the ugliest cgi i have ever fucking scene

why does the camera INSIST ON MOVING LIKE THAT. the action is super hard to track, the cgi is ugly as fuck (it really cannot be overstated)... i made it to about... i want to say when theyre on the way to the big fight and then the combined everything gave me a heaache that o had for the rest of the movie

i mentioned earlier that the pacing is weird the transitions are also weird. you get cuts to and from places that never fade into each other, it’s always a hard jump cut but it’s never the right cut to make? like, in thor ragnarok for example, there are a bunch of scene changes that happen via the bifrost, via people going through doors. there are wide shots that jump to wide shots in other places, so youre not suddenly on a close-up. there are a lot of people emerging from something into view, and there are a lof of people being alone in the center of the frame. it’s a very smooth and easy to watch movie. JL is the opposite of this in every way. I SUSPECT. AGAIN. THAT WHILE THIS WOULDNT HAVE BEEN FIXED ENTIRELY. THAT THOSE EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES THAT WERE CUT WERE PROBABLY REALLY IMPORTANT

the lois lane bit where she calms supes down just reminded me of the age of ultron and i quoted “sun’s going down” at my friends who were with me and they shit themselves laughing

ma kent calls lois lane “thirsty” in a Hilarious Teen Humor Gag thanks joss whedon you fucking hack

bruce wayne is fucking useless he could have got barry ANY JOB EVER and like... my god whatever.

also i still dont understand how how voice sounds like that when he’s batmanuh the after after credits scene is setting up, according to my friend, a sinister six movie. deathstroke isnt played by manu bennett so it’s fucking usless thanks for coming to my ted talk

[apexart-journal]

Radha Gomaty in NYC Day 14 part 2

Snapshots of Consciousness.

i love this term .

i encountered it first in a book gifted to me by a friend called I AM THAT -a the transcription of the dialogues by Maurice Frydman of a great Indian mystic Nisargadatta Maharaj or NM for short .NM had barely studied to 4th grade and successfully an a small chain of 8 tobacco shops till the call came , he met his Master and underwent a fundamental transformation spontaeneously becoming one himself .

Snapshots of consciousness.

These are nothing but the procession of the NOW moments when being kind of glows up at its radiant best into experience that the Consciousness captures in their utter lucidity then and there and stores away into its endless annals.

It is different from what in general parlance is referred to as a Memory; In the sense ,memory is a construct of many such moments strung together and thereby shaped by various narrative threads that Mind brings in .

So memory and such snapshots moments are not the same

I have been wondering if i could put some down here...

But since this is a journal , a mandatory one at that  and I am positioned as this traveller from a different culture ,a different physical and geographical clime ,that slight self consciousness does tend to crystallize an element of   memory as well, seeded around such single snapshot moments in the saturation of sensations while journeying.

April 21st Earth day ;Walk at East River Park .

i have to look for a foot bridge that for the life of me i am unable to locate and curiously , none i ask seem to know either .That way my experience with New Yorkers has been very human and altogether quite nice .

People stop and actually take their earphones out of their ears and stop to answer your queries which for me is like ...Wow!

it doesn't matter that few walk on or choose not to hear you out .

But thats OK.

There is always the next person you could ask.The world is a busy place.

Finally a young man points out the central route in the bridge that is raised above the rest ,there are only walkers ,runners ,skateboarders and speed cyclists.

”Thats the foot bridge right at the centre of the bridge , raised in level from the vehicular traffic “he said and i thought - wow!what a concept !

it was exhilarating going higher and higher seeing the river slowly rise to view, the charming old fashioned red brick high rises ... Suddenly i am flying ... and a smile from inside bursts into bloom in a slow spread across  my face that my dimples almost ache .I can feel my heart opening out with the sky .It’s  for one long slowed down honeyed instant as in a reverie as i share the smooth dream-like  momentum of the cyclists with their pointy helmets but sans their serious and often grim faces  .Physical ease and totally controlled bouyant agility has always been part of my favorite dream vocabulary. In that state when i walk i dont just walk.

I flow.

i fly .

But somehow i began to feel  i am perhaps on the wrong track as directions go, if i have to find an old firehouse at the end of a foot bridge leading to the bank of the river .However while i looked i saw the river was petty much now almost beneath my feet .

My hunch was right and guided by a cyclist with better sense I turned right back round , neither flowed nor flew but plodded like anyone else effortfully finding my way to destination ,quite royally off the punctuality mark by now a full 15 mts!

There i saw a soul as lost as i as the group had walked away by the time she had got here 10 mts before me and no one was answering her calls either.

While Patricia is chatting away about  herself to me she is  joined by her friend Emma,an avid runner who has caught sight of her at a distance and walks in to join us.Both friends request me to shoot a pic of them together against the flowers of spring which i happily  do .

Emma happens to have a connect with india that soon led to the topic of her interest -meditation and Yoga. On being asked I added my two pennies to her interests and concerns .As a mark of our gratitude for the conversation , we shoot a selfie together for the road as i leave finding the long way back to  the subway station .

I was walking down a long fairly quiet road with a wide sidewalk of dirt when i felt a leg of my spectacles fall away on to the ground swinging to one side of my face.

oh no!

i bend to look for the screw that had come loose but to no avail!

i was mildly dismayed because they were a brand new pair of spectacles i had spent a good deal of money on just a couple of days before I started  .in fact just two days ago at the Brooklyn museum where i also happened to be quite unwell , a leg had already dropped off and the resourceful and exceptionally friendly young woman at the reception dug out a small drawing pin with a ball shaped small round black head upon my request for an improvised fix up session. I managed to bend and insert it in place of the lost screw.

Even that had seemed like small miracle then and i was so grateful. Now i had gone and lost it again ...oh!

But here pops up  the snapshot-  suddenly a tiny golden colored metal safety pin slightly glued up because obviously it has been part of some form of ornamentation  jumps to view.

Its role was to keep something  in place on the dress or hat  or hairband or whatever and was now lying on the dirt upon a sidewalk under a huge bridge in an avenue of flowering trees where people take their dogs out freely to poo, at the precise moment when my spectacles collapsed from my face with one of its legs losing that minuscule screw that keeps it in its place, coming loose and disappearing!

You see , the fact is I am simply good for nothing without my glasses on . Like... i can’t read a thing !

So finding a tiny golden safety pin that still works though all glued up   in nowhere and at the exact precise moment i lost a leg of my specs was like further affirmation that HE is very much there  and with a zany sense of humor at that!

(why HE ?and not a SHE or an IT ...Oh!that’s simple. Being SHE is still quite part of my experience as of now and having a groovy HE around now wouldn't harm me one bit ! )

Thats when i realized yet another fact -Hey ! the leg fitted in with the drawing pin was still  intact and this was the other one that had come loose too !

Now ain’t that grand !

I’m in New York now with truly iconic deconstructed/reconstructed eyewear - a pair of unique red rimmed spectacles whose legs are each fixed with one,a black ball headed drawing pin on one side bent into a u shaped loop with the sharp end jutting upward like a micro antenna into space as if to catch the voices of the voiceless on Earth &intelligent alien civilisations in the Heavens  .And,two, a tiny golden safety pin whose location for falling off from whatever was its last functional post  seems to have happened  with a preordained purpose ,pre orchestrated right to the micro-moment when the other good leg of my spectacles chooses to come off with a precision that simply astounds.

Simply put ,someone  ,who while choosing to remain maddeningly hidden, still loves me one hell of a lot  with a rocking sense of humor and a penchant for  springing shocks & surprises with equal impunity .

You are so close sometimes that i can almost feel you - Secret Lover ...You who has watched over many a tear and then each time stirred to life a smile on my face creating rainbows while even letting me occasionally , the blind woman who sees only with her fingers ,touch that hidden Prism from where You work Your Rainbow making Magic.

I am shooting a bough all abloom for a friend back home who I think loves flowers when You shows up again ... this time with a sudden cool breath of strong breeze that begins to ruffle the flowers with a secret caressing playfulness. i burst into a peal of laughter looking from under tree up at the blueness of the sky through the gaps between the whiteness of the flowers .

My eyes are dancing as I whisper to you  “I’m switching to video since you won’t let me photograph...so what are you going to do about that?”.

“Go ahead ...do it!”

i can sense the play-along approval as i tape and the breeze ends as suddenly as it began .

Love: shutter /  aperture / lens .

Snapshots of Consciousness.