#the design on the dragon stamps was so cool too. from what i could see. im gonna have to buy them when they come out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kyotakumrau · 4 years

Text

2021.03.10 USEN STUDIO COAST 1st session with Toshiya and Kyo

They changed the tables for some reason, going from two bigger rectangle ones to four one person round high tables.

Fujieda and Takabayashi came on stage, F greeted fans as usual and asked for the applause for the band members.

After a moment of waiting with bated breath, Toshiya appeared and Kyo after him.

Kyo wore a big light grey coat, white shirt, black (most likely Madara)short shorts, white socks with red print and big sneakers.

Toshiya had white shirt, pearls?, and black slacks.

They sat in order Ta, T, K, F from right to left.

T: [As it's an official event] so, I'm Toshiya, the bassist from DIR EN GREY.

K: I'm Kyo.

F: It's 1st time for T to attend a talk event this year, how do you feel?

T: normal.

F: you've played here even as the venue has a new name. But it's been while. How do you feel K?

K: just usual.

F: you don't feel like it's been a while?

K: not really.

T: playing at Rock-May-Kan definitely made me feel it's been a while. The place is so small. We played with no audience, it was a first time in RMK which felt so strange.

F: rehearsal felt normal.

T: yeah.

F: anything from then?

T: it was nice to see all the staff.

F: how about you, K? We watched the live footage in February, anything feels different?

K: ... I don't remember it anymore.

F: the recording was done a long time ago.

K: Can't remember. At all.

F: I want to ask... (K just started staring at him and that was the end of it😂).

Next, F talked about the leaflet (he also mentioned how awesome it is that camera can move and zoom in this time, was it for K?😆), the photo being quite shocking/impactful. Was shooting hard? Finished really quickly, right?

T: Yeah.

K: it was refreshing. I said it was refreshing/cool, I didn't lie. It's like coolness in summer. It's auspicious/celebratory. Celebrating being born. When you're being born it's never pretty. So I didn't lie before, not even once, I said it's like a cool wind, I just didn't say anything about the celebration part to avoid spoiling it.

F: so far K said Oboro is refreshing, like Taiyou no Ao, Kaoru said it's refreshing, but more like Myaku remix. Shinya said it's like '肉付きに龍(flesh and dragon)' How about you, T?

T: you will know when you listen to it. It's not something that can be explained with words.

F: what about TDFF?

K: it's also refreshing. I listened to the file yesterday, it's like a cream soda, refreshing with a bit of a mellow hint.

F: Vanilla flavor?

K: maybe not just vanilla, mixing other stuff in until it almost spills.

F: what do you think T?

T: ...so, refreshing then.

F: ok, it's refreshing.

K: and auspicious.

And auspicious.

F read the info about the May show in Tokyo Garden Theater and fans clapped.

T: it's been over a year since our last show in Japan, I'm really looking forward to it. In this condition holding concerts is not entirely called for, but we as DIR EN GREY have decided to do it. If you're able to please come.

K: it's been a long time since the last concert. But. Isn't it a weekday? Utterly a weekday. It's almost like bullying [the fans]. Shouldn't we try to book a better date for such an important concert? This is really so much like us.

F: it's just after Golden Week (a week long holiday in Japan).

K: people will be so busy getting back to work. (after F encouragement to say something inviting) So, I'm looking forward to the show when people will have to work because it's weekday (sarcasm by Kyo 👌)

Next was merchandise corner. F again asked us and band members to look at the flyer.

F: T, are there any items you really like?

T: all of them.

F: Shinya uses the tote bag in private now.

K: Did you actually saw him use it?

F: he had it yesterday.

K: huh.

Ta: can we really say yesterday was using it in private though?

Next F showed us the hoodie and the towel, holding the towel up.

K: you should present it more properly.

F held it properly so we could see the whole towel, but K continued to give him dissatisfied look😆

Next F talked about the travel pouch saying it's useful when you travel on the tour you can hang it as it has a small hook.

K started to point out the problems with F explanation, where to hang it, isn't it better to just put on the table, the hook is then useless. A hook for a bag you will put on the table, what. You're terrible at explaining the merch.

😂

T: isn't that for shower room?

F: to put shampoo in and so on?

K just stares at F, that face oh my🤣

F: we talked about it being for shower stuff but we worried about it being waterproof.

K: You actually don't know, do you?🤦‍♂️ are you a scam? Why don't you know??? You should know more about the items!

F: I will properly check!

K: with who?

F: with the merchandiser!

K just looked at him😂

F: but you can probably use it safely in the shower💦

Kyo stared...🤣

F: T, do you have any favorites?

T (after giving him a look): I said all.

F: you, K?

K: the hoodie. The picture in the back was done by my tattoo artist, on my request. I really like it.

F passed them their keychains, K just kept staring at them.

T: why are there 2 types?

F: I wonder. It's for Ochita, so one normal outfit and one bloody. Details are really nice.

And then it was time for the questions from fans.

F: there are many questions about movies, anime etc you've watched recently. K?

K: Evangelion. Not gonna spoil it, but please watch it on a big screen.

T: I want to watch Eva!

F: Ta, are you also an Eva fan?

Ta: I watched the old series, haven't seen the new ones.

Ta: there are many Q to and about F. "Most band members are from Kansai, F do you feel alienated by that?"

F: I'm from Tokyo, but not even a bit.

Ta: where exactly? Do you go back a lot?

F: my old neighborhood doesn't change, it's actually around here. Definitely no alienation.

F: "what's your favourite icecream?" There are many Q asking about sweets. How about you, K?

K: Icecream, I like Cola flavoured Sacre. And the melonpan with icecream inside, when I see that in the shop I always buy like 3. Recently not many shops have it.

F: so when you see it you always get them.

K: Yes.

F: get like 3.

K: Yes.

F: how about you, T? Recently it's a bit cold.

T: hah! I don't recently eat icecream. But I like fruity ones. I like rum raisin.

F: any questions you like, T?

While T was deciding which Q to read K just popped his papers on F's desk😂

T: "what was your first impression of other members when you first met? And how have they changed?"

F: so T will tell us about K.

T: the impression when we first met?

K: was it at Farm? In Nagoya?

T: Farm? I went to see some taiban event at GIO and we met there.

F: where is GIO?

T: in Ichikawa. And we talked there. Has he changed? Of course he has, but I thought he is someone who can laugh very carefree.

F: it was a taiban event of different bands.

T: yeah.

F: How about T, K?

K: it's bit muddled, but I remember best T playing guitar. And the strongest memory I have is T going crazy playing guitar.

F: how about other members? Kaoru?

T: I remember we didn't talk much, just said hi.

F: you met them at GIO. what about Die?

T: he was very talkative, very easy to talk to.

F: Shinya?

T: just passed by.

F: you didn't talk?

T: Just hello.

F told them how D described meeting S. Then he asked Kyo about Kaoru.

K: we met at taiban event, he was playing guitar in a band called Charm. I was impressed with his photo on the flyer. I thought he was very cool, and calm.

F: what ablut Die?

K: I found him through a flyer looking for new band members I thought he was cool. and then there was a taiban.

F: what about S?

K chuckled first😂: I remember he had a bob hair and a very long earring, just one, like a chain. And that earring was moving when he was talking. I remember that.

Ta: has he changed?

K: His looks changed, but he didn't change inside.

Ta: oh.

K: Just gradually ...got weirder. I think he hates humans. But he has many friends he does riddles with. He knows so many people, too many, he uses social media so much, I have no idea who he's hanging out with, but he even has photos with Dewi Sukarno. He probably doesn't hate humans, just hates his band members. Hates people who know about the past.

😂

Ta: "S said he's using tour merch like tshirts, how about you?"

T: 使うやつが使うね・I use stuff that's ok to use. From this event I'd use the travel pouch and usb.

K: I use our items a lot, like towels or hoodies.

F: "what's your favourite meat cut?"

K: skirt steak.

T: skirt steak or offal.

F: I love skirt steak too! - he the continued to talk about meat how good are some parts until he noticed both T and K looks🤣

F: " do you prefer bath or shower? What time do you take bath?"

K: in the evening. But when I have a fresh tattoo I can't take a bath for about 2 weeks, then I take a shower.

F: do tattoos hurt in a bath?

K: They hurt or sting. It's like an injury so like a cut it stings in a bath. Did you think tattos are like a stamp?!

F: it seems it's tough.

Ta: you know tattoos are allowed in our company...

I loved Ta's jab, but what came after this from Kyo was just pure ❤️🤣

K: I will even buy a tattoo machine and do it so you F can get a tattoo.

F: what kind of desing?

K: a giraffe. On your back. Wouldn't it be more scary than oni or a dragon? I'm serious (he was trying so hard not to laugh😂), it's the scariest option, a giraffe.

F: you would design it?

K: Of course. A yellow one. Guys who have scribble/doodle like tattoos are the really scary ones! A yellow giraffe.

F: Let me think about it.

K: please do!

🤣🤣🤣

F: how about you T, a bath or shower?

T: sometimes a lomg bath, sometimes a ahort one, sometimes a shower.

T: "do you eat sweets?" I don't really. if anything, then chocolate.

F: what type?

T: My favorite was Kirinokibune (霧の浮舟, a bit like Aero. Has been discountinued).

F: I'll check it, you K?

K: isn't half of me sweets?😆

F: what do you like recently?

K: cookies, chocolate cookies.

F: from Morinaga? (big chocolate company in Japan, you can find it in every supermarket etc)

K: Morinaga? I don't like soft cookies, they have to be hard, chocolate cookie with chocolate. Recently, near Harajuku station there's a shop with a red fluffy character that looks like MUCC, I love their cookies.

Then F suggested sth only older people would know it and if looks could kill F would be anihilated by K on the spot🤣

F: last Q, let's choose something easy to answer.

F: "what do you like to eat with rice? I like umeboshi (pickled plum)"

T: in Nagano we eat nametake.

F was a bit clueless how to eat it etc and made T explain more.

F: you K?

K: I don't care. Don't you just eat it with side dishes? No one eats only rice with pickled plum? It's not postwar period!

F: so what side dishes do you like?

K: Sushi.

🤣

F: ...sushi?? Isn't that a bit different??

K: you eat fish with rice, no?

F: so what sushi do you like?

K: fatty cut of flounder fin(あぶりのえんがわ)

And finally last comments:

Toshiya: thank you for today, DIR has decided to hold a concert with audience in May, please come if you can. But you have to decide that for yourself. We made our decision.

Kyo: I don't have anything, as usual. ...your t-shirts will increase, it's hard for people living far from Tokyo, nothing much to say.

F: you mean you will like to see everyone in May and so on?

K: I said I have nothing to say, didn't I?!💢

#dir en grey #kyo #京 #toshiya #目黒鹿鳴館gig #爆音会 #talk event #attempt at live report #新木場studio coast

134 notes · View notes

i-did · 4 years

Note

HELLO 👋 I WAS SENT HERE BY PALMETT-HOES. What are your thoughts on the foxes + tattoos?? Originally it was Neil + tattoos but if you have thoughts of the other foxes too I'd love to hear them if you want to share 🥺

Okay, so I actually might try to become a tattoo artist and love tattoo culture. I also have already about 30 tattoos, some the size of my whole hand and some the size of a quarter, a lot of mixed and matched stuff. I also always try to think of the foxes in their timeline, so 2006-2007 era, and when I think said foxes would get tattoos in their life and why.

NEIL

First off: I personally HC Neil has keloid scarring and a lot of scarring so tattooing is hard on his skin. I have a friend who has more scars than I've ever seen on anyone else IRL before and we both love tattoos but even with him trying to prep the artist, unless they were a scar micropigmentation expert, they usually underestimated how hard it was going to be to tattoo on his skin. It's uneven and dense and doesn’t hold ink well. His non-scarred skin faired a lot better but his skin was something artists just weren't prepared for. I might get some micropigmentation on some skin grafts I got to even out the coloring and make it look more “natural” but I’m waiting to see if the pigment will settle and heal more first.

I personally don't see Neil ever getting a tattoo, and this bums a lot of people out lmao. I think his scars are too thick and too raised and it's too cosmetic and aesthetic centric for it to be something on his radar. On his skin that isn't touched by scars I think he would want to leave as be mostly out of neutrality. I don't see Neil as the type of sentimental tattooer, I see him thinking “well if it matters to me I remember it” sort of and him wanting to keep the really deep stuff personal just for himself and even another person putting it on him is someone else there. I think if he were ever to get a tattoo, he would be like… idk it would be the kind that says “yes I got shot, stop asking” over a bullet hole scar or like that one guy whos missing his leg and above it there's a tattoo that says “one foot in the grave” that's the only type of tattoo I can see Neil doing and even still I'm not convinced he would do it.

ANDREW

I don't ever see Andrew covering up his scars with tattoos either. I think he likes how the armbands can come on and off and be fully covered to not at all. He's not ashamed of them but he's private, and I think the tattoos could seem like he's trying to hide them when he's not-it's just nobody's business. I think if he were to get anything it would be American-traditional, it ages well, its classic, and doesn't really go out of style. Before the…. Let's say 80s, there weren't the different tattoo “styles” like there are today. It was just… tattoos in America. There was Japanese-style tattooing and then American-style tattooing, and since tattooing started curating its underground culture in the ’50s in America… those circles did not blend. They do now, but they sure as hell didn't then. So I could see Andrew with American-traditional because it's classic and I could see it appealing to him, but I could also see Russian prison tattoo style black-work something that appeals to him too. Get him some gulag tats. However if he had those, and since I currently HC him as white and with a buzzed or grown-out messy buzzed head, he would deadass look like a fuckin skinhead so... yeah lmao. Overall I don't see Andrew getting tattoos really, but if he would, American-traditional seems fitting.

KEVIN

Okay, so Kevin out here looking like a MF SoundCloud rapper with his single face tat and nothing else going on. I know it might be OOC but since his mom is Irish and I HC his dad as Maori (even tho in the canon Wymack likely has 90s new age tribalism, which is a complicated issue but instead I choose culturally significant tattoos over the tattoo trend that was largely popularized by a movie lmao anyways-).

So I think Kevin is the only one who dives into tattoo culture and bonds over it with his dad. If he just has the chess piece, it still feels like a branding, like a mark so distinct against the rest of him, but one full sleeve of Celtic knots and symbols and the other arm full of Maori's distinct tattoos of swirls and symbols could be a cool way for him to reclaim his own skin and have it not be something he did just to cover something up, but make tattooing something connecting him to his cultures and family.

NICKY

Nicky is the guy who got like, fierce, or pride, or something like that tattooed if he got a tattoo. I see Nicky getting a pride tattoo of some kind maybe and it being calligraphy or like if Nicky/Erik is a bear then he gets a bear paw. I could also see him getting his and Erik’s wedding date tattooed somewhere. I also don't see him as the type who didn't know how much research and shit goes into finding the artist for you, and kinda assumes you can go to just anyone and just walk in and then was like “wait what” when he couldn’t (or couldn't if he wanted to get exactly what he had in mind) so he probably got/gets tattooed by some non-homophobic apprentice, maybe even that apprentices first tattoo, and also since Nicky is Mexican and darker-skinned I doubt he thinks to put on sunscreen and the sun makes his ink lines bleed and so it doesn't age the best (it be like that).

ALLISON

Got a trendy tramp stamp to like, really stick it to her parents. Right on her lower back I bet it's the classic 2000s swirls and a butterfly and some of those stars, idk what they're called. If she was a young 20-year-old now tho she totally would have gotten a fine line tattoo, like not a tight three, a real 1 needle tattoo. They were seen as really nice back then and “so Cali” and like I could see /maybe/ her getting it done before she's 30 but they were not that common yet and like micro-realism is so new we still kinda don't know how it's going to age at all since tattoos before it have been designed they way they have for aging. Again if she got a micro-realism/single needle tattoo tho it would be something kinda basic like a butterfly or like a lion. I swear I've seen the same google image lion tattooed on a lotta people and like IDC it's your skin. But yeah, she gets the classic 2000s swirl butterfly and stars tattoo above her crack one night, maybe after a really bad phone call with her parents and she got drunk and pissed off. Maybe someone said she couldn't take the pain. (which btw, tattoos don’t hurt as much as they make them out to be in shows and shit, they can hurt tho)

DAN

I HC Dan as very dark-skinned, she's 75% black and 25% Sioux and grew up in a very very white area when outside her home on the res. Tattoo culture is still really sexist and really colorist, and at this point in history I think if she ever did want a tattoo, she maybe asked vaguely about it and they flat out said “I don't know how to tattoo on black skin” or “it doesn't go with my art” which… are shithole excuses and I think she thought, “well fuck u too” and never thought about it much since then.

RENEE

I HC as Renee as darker-skinned than Dan, and like the only places she could possibly get tattooed are maybe her palms, the bottoms of her feet, or her inner mouth probably. Some people genuinely are so dark that tattooing is hard, because it's based on the concept of black ink on a lighter surface, which is why scarification catches on in cultures where the skin is too dark to pigment with ink effectively. However, the idea of fuckin, 15-year-old Renee who is still Natalie with “PU$$Y” tattooed in her mouth kinda sends me. I think lil kid Renee thought she was gangster, and tbh she was, and I could see her getting some “fuck you/in your face” tattoo, especially if she was a lesbian in such a homophobic world, getting that tattooed is even better. We also know she got her back tatted in the EC with angel wings that look almost closer to dragon wings, so I imagine they show up as almost raised dark lines like scars from the untrained tattoo artist going way too deep, making it a cross between a tattoo and scarification, even if accidental. (also white ink really wasn't a thing yet and even now is still kinda hard to tell how it will heal, so that's why I don't think she gets any white ink tats)

MATT

He's a rich boy from NYC, he could really get like… whatever he wants. Once he's famous he can afford it that's for sure, but even before then he could with his allowance similar to Allison (even if on a completely different level). However, I doubt he gets anything lol. He's not particularly religious in my HC and doesn't have the same sense of being lost like I feel Kevin does with his own parents (I mean Kevin was raised like an orphan, kinda so it makes sense). I need to develop Matt’s background further on what it means to him personally to be a Filipino-American. I have several ideas about how his parents met in the Philippines and then came here but I would need to flesh out locations and then local cultures and then his parents said opinions on tattoos and then how matt would react to said opinions. I could see him possibly getting something for dan or his kids tattooed on. Which really makes me want to have him get his first kid's name tattooed really big or intricate somewhere like on his chest over his heart and then his kid comes out as trans and he's like “...fuck” lmao and gets it removed maybe and then redone or something. I see him viewing tattoos are personal and symbolic, and if he would get something it would probably be family-oriented, possibly Dan's portrait or like his baby's footprint which I've seen before.

AARON & SETH

Stick and pokes were not nearly as common then as they are now, and I feel like people kinda have to remember how taboo tattooing was then and still is now in a lot of cultures. My family is Not happy lmaoo. But it is what it is. Stick and Pokes were not a thing bored white middle-class teens did like I see them doing now. It was seen as super sketchy and I know someone who was 16 getting tattooed in a garage by someone who was both drunk and just out of prison for the first time, and that was seen as sketchy as stick and pokes at the time. I could imagine either Seth or Aaron having a failed and fucked up stick and poke tattoo, and out of the two of them, Seth seems like the drunk tat guy. Maybe once he got drunk and mad as fuck after Allison and him broke up and she said he didn't seem serious enough so he got her name drunkenly tattooed on his arm or something and then she was even more pissed because it was spelled wrong “YOU FORGOT THE SECOND L OMFG SETH.” (I can also imagine his future girlfriends don't love it lmao). I also love the idea of Seth just having Marvin the Martian or the Tasmanian Devil tattooed on his ass.

Anyways sorry for the lack of pictures but I didn't want to do that... so I didn't. I didn't go into niche tattoo culture and history like I was expecting myself to but this also got fuckin long. Might not be what you were hoping for at all but it is my current opinion on the foxes and tattoos. (This is also surprisingly free of my own personal aesthetic opinions on tattoos and that I'm kinda proud of ngl, since my preference is none of these, but also I grew up in a very different tattoo time than them)

#aftg #all for the game #ask #mailob #fig writes

41 notes · View notes

avery-allyss · 3 years

Text

I guess this could be worse.

The assignment was to create a design based off of one or more creation myths. I have little hints of several because copying something too closely seems redundant. Yes it a bit of a confusing jumble and you need to stretch a lil to pick up all the references, but I like it that way.

Egg shape is from several myths, mainly because my favorite myth is the Finnish creation myth, which is also the source of the duck. I'll get more into that further down in the reflective portion of this post.

The yin/yang base for the devision of the egg is from Asia. The concept is more into the description of the energies, the yang being masculine firey intenseness of light, and the yin being the quite coolness of darkness.

The volcano ang glacier are derived from Norse mythology, and I played with the idea of making some sort of root system in the line separating the two to represent the beginning of yggdrasil.

The reeds and cat are from the native American myth. Something about a Reed carrying the founders through worlds, and loosing a war to cat people? It stuck in my mind.

This is the second time I've ever done print making, the first was over ten years ago and stamping a smaller design on an extra large Tshirt I still use as pjs.

The entire process was a mess.

We had one linoleum panel to work with. We had to carve away each color we wanted to keep.

I started slow because the white and yellow layers were so complicated.

I miss measured the paper size so the back of all four copies are a mess.

I made four copies, and every one had a different mystake. The one showed was the only one that the cat showed up on.

I fucked up carving alot, I just got good at covering it up.

The duck has no bill. I tried to make up for it by giving them an intentional halo, it didn't quite work.

The reeds are too short. This actually gives off a slightly more organic vibe than I was going for. I'm not quite sure if I like it.

One of the sun swirls is broken up a bit because my hand sliped.

The blue layer was off and ended up giving the volcano some highlight. It pops a little until you realize it's out of place, so I don't like it.

Printed red through black in one day, my entire arm hates me still. I had my entire arm tensed to prevent slip ups. It's not so bad right now because my mom told me which med to take today, but I couldn't sleep on that side or my back very well last night. At least I didn't break skin when I stabed myself! I need to lay off crocheting, but that's how I decompress...

I will repost with individual pictures of each copy and the drawing on Monday, that's when the crit is anyway.

What I would do differently

Smaller egg, let the corners interact with each other a bit.

I would play with the idea of white clouds, or white with black highlights.

I would make the sun swirls part of the red gradient. I would also simplify their shape to make them easier to carve.

I would look at different ways to portray the cat. Maybe I would play with the idea of red eyes on the cat. Red claws to represent violence? Cause I'm not going to ever go all in on a horrific portrayal, hints have to do for kitty.

Multi colored and more consistent pebble bed. Maybe mossy rocks or sand with grasses growing in? Seeds? Arthropods to pull in yet another creation myth?

Duck would have a bill and a halo or some sort. There plenty of methods to imitate and explore.

I would play with the idea of defining individual rock structure on the volcano and the small waterfall.

Gemstones on the volcano?

Maybe not even do a volcano, and just make a black dragon on a mountain? Chinese style to keep up with the theme of creation?

Shade the reeds in gradients, maybe make thin red lines to imitate their texture?

Dragonflies by the reeds?

Green layer to add moss and lichen, as well as springtime pigments for the reeds as opposed to fall, can you even marble shades effectively in print making? Green detailing on the cat would start getting Erie.

Yggdrasil roots in the division, multi color highlights on yellow, tiny branch coming around to poke out by the sun?

Grey to black gradient instead of straight black for the outline?

Use a digital painting software instead of actualy carving it all. That's the only way I will play with this image again.

The Finnish Godess of Creaton

Luonnotar

Once the universe was comprised of three things.

There was nothingness, a vast unmeasurable abyss where not even a single star shone. The power of stillness was held in the dark expanse.

There was a river, a mysterious flow of swirling posability. The power and movement of the universe was held in the 'waters'.

And lastly, there was a girl. Luonntar was the daughter of the stillness of the abyss and the power of movement. She was alone, and there was nothing for her to do, no way to express herself, or to release energy, or even just simply enrich her life. She did not know companionship, so she did not know to be lonely. She did not sleep, nor did she truly live. She only felt emptiness. There was no pain to be felt, nor was there joy to be had.

Something changed. Something tightened in Luonntar's chest, as though her heart was hurting. Over another eternity she came to recognize the pain as desire. Into her emptiness had flowed a blind longing. She wanted something but she did not know what there even was to want. She wanted change, but because she never experienced anything but the same river and the same darkness, she had no idea what it was she wanted.

Slowly (as everything so far had), an idea budded in Luonntar's mind, the first idea ever in the universe. She jumped into the river and swam. She did not sink, but floated on the surface, looking back up to the darkness she had left from. This action permanently altered the universe, though seeing how took some more time (of corse). In the meantime the girl relaxed as she drifted through the river.

Then came a duck ((grapes are not involved in this myth stahp)) swimming up to Luonntar. A duck, in a universe where there had only ever been one being, now there were two! With Luonntar's change and wish, she changed the entire universe and a new world was created in which the duck could exist too.

The curious bird swam around the girl looking at the strange other being, the girl laying very still as she did the same. The duck climbed up onto Luonntar's warm knee and sat. Then something else happened, something so beautiful that Luonntar could not believe her eyes.

The duck layed three eggs there upon the goddess' knee because it was the only warm dry place in the entire universe, and the only place the future could hatch.

Luonntar kept so very still, anxious of the fragile life prched upon her knee. The duck warmed her clutch as they grew hotter and hotter as the future drew near.

Luonntar yearned for that future like she had never yearned before, bringing back the dull pain from before. She ignored it.

The eggs grew uncomfortably hot, the ducks featherstickled her, and the bebed feet left tiny scratches on her. She ignored it all.

Suddenly the duck shifted, her feathers tickling Luonntar and she couldn't help but to twitch reflexively. She did not mean to but it was enough. She watched horrified as the eggs tumbled into the river. She berated herself, fearing for the eggs. Would they sink forever out of sight? Would the future be lost?

Instead the eggs broke open. Marvels poured forth. The yolks joined into the sun and rose up into the abyss. The whites became a silver moon, rising as well. The tiny bits of the shells became the stars, scattered disjointed with the rest of the remains of the three eggs. In a world where only darkness had existed, light was born. It was magic.

Luonntar was changed by the magic, as she dove beneath the surface. Something was calling to her from the depths. It was the mud at the bottom. She grabbed handfuls and swam back to the surface. She molded a cone from the mud upon her belly and placed it on the surface of the river. It rose into the sky and became a mountain.

She dived again and again, returning to the surface to mold more new landscapes. She carved veins of rivers through the land, scooping out lakes. The stars watched in fascination. Inspired, they rearranged themselves into designs. The moon learned out to show its changing face to the earth.

As Luonntar built the land, life burst forth. Plants grew, creatures came to be. All life was the children of the new earth. When the goddess rested at long last and looked at the bright sky, the green foliage, and the lively children, she knew it was good.

((Adlibed from "Wild Girls" by Patricia Monaghan))

#crafts #art #myths

3 notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

The Mandalorian season 2 ep 1 AGAIN! it’s the rewatch folks

- The entire last season reminder/intro scene is kind of clunky and we’re-hitting-you-over-the-head-with-this, but I think it’s important to note that it’s probably meant for the vast majority of people who watched this stuff once a wholeass year ago, and not for me, the crazy person who watched each episode at least five times lol

I like the way mando & bb walk from darkness into brief light and back into darkness here... the directors keep finding such cool ways of using the armour cinematically, there must be some lighting considerations to be made when your main character is essentially a walking disco ball. I enjoy the mood of this planet too -- the distant lights, the way the sky isn’t quite dark like there’s a city providing some light pollution nearby (it’s a bit clearer as he walks further into the... town? that it’s not just sunset, the sky is lit up weirdly)

also when din moves towards the camera and out of sight in this first appearance, the signet is the very last thing that leaves the frame! I just thought that was sweet, a clan of two :’)

- shotout to these two lads and their boldly absolutely inexplicable hat choices (I love gratuitous star wars crowd scenes you guys)

those tacky gold sequins on her sleeves... immaculate, beautiful, someone sat through like full body makeup application to be on screen a literal split second, that good good sw nonsense

- oh I didn’t notice before but I think those gladiator dudes are using vibroaxes! I guess they have the technology to portray it in live action now after the vibroblades in the first season

- the way bb glances up at din like ‘hey dad. dad what the fuck???’ as one gomorrean nearly chops the arm off the other fjaslfds

- when you look for it it’s comically obvious that those guys are working for the dude mando’s meeting, they’ve all got more or less the same dark uniform and don’t look much at the fight haha. they might as well have ‘hired thugs’ stamped upon their foreheads

- I like how pared down and spare the music is in this fight scene, it’s just the faint whine of the electric guitars under the thuds of meat hitting metal

also still love how din fights, the fact that he doesn’t even try to not get hit a lot of the time, he’s just tanking through it waiting for someone to fling themselves at him in a way he can exploit to take them out

the bouncer seems to be holding something like sci-fi handcuffs when he grabs din and lifts him off his feet, so he probably meant to restrain him quickly. bonus: I didn’t notice it the first time around, but din really went straaaaaiiight for this dude’s gentleman area once he dropped him back on his feet lol (you can even see him taking a split second to orient himself and take aim first fhsdkfhas). good job space cowboy dad, sometimes fighting smart means fighting dirty

- leaving this awful dude hanging upside down to get eaten after employing some very deliberate phrasing so he’s not even breaking his word is the ruthless HEIGHT of mando’s hilarious petty streak and it makes me cackle, gives me life, waters my crops

- oh, the palpable loneliness and longing in din’s voice when he says ‘if I can track down another of my kind’ ;_______; I’m sorry buddy

- may we speak for a moment about the fact that din carries his son around in what seems very much to be a saddle bag sdafjkhsa

- the way din checks in with peli (to see if she’s fucking with him? he’s very confused anyway haha) over the map before saying “I don’t see anything” is so precious. he already seems much more socially tuned in and responsive compared to the beginning of season 1, you love to see it, coming out of that freeze response baBEY

- I can’t get over how much the baby loves speed, this is coming back to bite you so hard if you’re ever going to have to teach this kid how to drive one day mando

- awwww the little patented mando finger curl as he enters the bar <3<3<3 that’s sort of his tell for being preoccupied/anxious; I think finding other mandos, someone to trust and to get help from, means A Lot to him

once he sees the marshall in the armour his shoulders drop down and he stands up straighter :’) hope is a powerful thing (I guess all of this might add even more to how angry he is too)

the DEAD STOP when cobb takes the helmet off sdkfhkajsldhfsdk

- yodito putting his lil mouth on the lip of this jar thing is such a well observed little quirk of baby behaviour, I’m crying

(there is liquid of some sort in this thing; I’ve seen some people theorize it’s a spittoon but for my own peace of mind I’m going to forcefully declare that it is not thank you)

- so much stuff packed into that “He’s seen worse”!! dismissal, self-deprecation, sorrow, resignation, warning.

- the contrast in this standoff of vanth’s eastwood eye twitch and the complete deadpan impassiveness of din’s helmet and general demeanor... wonderful

- upon rewatching I’m actually wondering if some of these scenes with the baby on his own were filmed independently of the actors and that it might add to that slight distracting feeling of disconnect/distance you get through the episode. (it’s sort of odd to me that mando doesn’t even glance down at him as the whole place starts to shake, for example) there must be a lot of stuff that comes down to technical considerations with the baby; I suspect it takes a lot of time and resources to have him walking around too much, which is why The Waddle is kind of a rare treat

what I’m saying is that they may be saving up dad & baby interaction resources for episodes where it’s more relevant or important

- so is this a one bantha town or is it just for convenient film language reasons it was all alone in frame like that lol

also cobb’s ‘mondays amirite’ look fdsakjfhsjk

- since I think it every time I get to this part: this is a very neat hairstyle this person is rocking, suits them!

- ah the stern pointer finger of emphasis. din TALKS, no, COMMUNICATES so much in this episode you guys!!!!!

- rip this tusken, the bravest person who ever lived

- the delivery of “...they might be open to some fresh ideas” is the funniest moment of this entire episode don’t @ me

- oh the kotor-ness of it all lol

- jill (the girl who hands cobb the detonator) is so cute with her hat and everything ;____;

- I suppose these tuskens are really the bravest people to ever live considering they saw what happened to the last guy (or gal I suppose I don’t know how sand people gender works)

- baby needs some goggles to protect his giant eyes from wind and sand Y___Y

- they’ve nailed how to make the jetpacks work in live action, it looks really cool and I suspect it easily could have uh. not

- this poor sacrificial bantha... it even tried to get away

- ooooh the heart eyes -- cobb 100% has a crush on this man jfsdflhsad. (with it being sort of unrequited/’oh man I’m behind about 150 layers of dissociation too many to even really consider that one way or the other bud’ from mando’s side #personal headcanon disclaimer)

- my take on why din doesn’t get dissolved in acid in there is that that stuff is released from a specific gland or something that the dragon can unleash at will and that the spit itself doesn’t have that quality on its own (or at least it’s a lot less potent)

- seems pretty well confirmed by now that yodito is a carnivore huh hahaha

- I find it obscurely satisfying that cobb seems to be wearing exactly his old outfit under the armour -- he did just strap it on on top of what he already was. (there’s something there -- he’s a whole thing still without the armour, and at this time at least din would not be I don’t think) just some good narrative foil stuff going on here under the surface

also once again props to the costume design; without the armour he looks so vulnerable again, they have dressed him to emphasise his height and slenderness (especially compared to mando, who actually seems to have bulked up a bit? fatherhood suits him I guess)

plus, the way the baby looks questioningly up at din while he watches cobb walk away? yeah, din is lonely, let this poor man have a friend who stays around soon T______________T

- heeey boba, nice threads! my guess is that he’s not going to be there for the armour if he does track din down, since he hasn’t seemed to be in any haste to get it back before (which is interesting!). he might also have been unable to go looking for it before because he was still recovering from being half digested, of course, they could play it a lot of different ways

I wonder if we’ll get more of him in the next ep or if they’ll let the tension ramp up through the season

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian meta #the mandalorian spoilers #just to be safe hey

35 notes · View notes

donaldpepys · 3 years

Text

Ser Harys was his wife’s father, and Pycelle could be counted upon as well.

Ser Harys was his wife’s father, and Pycelle could be counted upon as well. Was last seen at his Ninth Ward home in June.. The way that it is done can be made apparent in a few words. “Stay still. “If this is his revenge, he wrongs me. It was self-defence,—it was preventing others from murdering me,—it was justifiable, it was even praiseworthy. Lie down a little,” she said as soon as we got into the room, “you’re tired, you know; it’s no joke running about so far, and it’s too much after an illness; lie down, darling, lie down. Have created 23 brands for the Future Group and some like John Miller has also been taken outside the group. haibike e mtb 2020 That I could take it really far, Sedochenkoff said in a recent phone interview. After three hours of wine and words, the priests took their leave … all but the kindly man, the waif, and the one whose face bore the marks of plague. That cracking sound again and then a scream of tortured papuci de casa din pasla wood, and suddenly the air was full of shards and splinters. The Unsullied man the walls and towers, ready for any assault. “And do you know what I was doing? I’ve been walking up and down, reciting poetry. No true neutral in Model T transmissions, Tomway notes. King’s Landing was crowded with smallfolk who’d come seeking refuge from the fighting. “Not soon enough. But thanks to the Ottawa Sun intrepid Bruce Garrioch, the outrage was shown to have extended into the corporate business world, with a spokesman from Air Canada Denis Vandal having written a letter to the NHL threatening to pull its sponsorship of the league because of what he said was the of associating pendientes bulgari precio their with events that could lead to irresponsible and dangerous accidents. Brayden Kuroda was 12th in M4.. The Jumpman logo was first introduced on the Air Jordan 3. Obviously a long vent can be bent to fit the enclosure, but that adds to the complexity of the design. 2014 was an extremely difficult adjustment for her, first and foremost, catalog cercei aur turcia because she lost her spouse of more than a half century. They will also be selling products. I’ve hurried to come to you, Natasha, to assure you of that, for I know you’re prejudiced against him, and of course that’s not your fault. I think if Stella were to come back, it would be a pretty hefty storyline. This acute virus paralyzed my right leg from waist to toe. We can get them doing that, we feel a little bit more comfortable defensively, because our kids see that every day. Gemstones glittered on the fingers of the lords and the girdles and hairnets of the ladies. (8.0 ppg, 3.8 rpg).. They would have perished soon in any case, from exposure or starvation. Brown bought the restaurant, located at 17779 Highway X, in July 2013, and he noted the original project plan was to keep one lane open on the bridge during reconstruction. Sometimes was a bit slow, I thought, but we worked pretty hard with (strength and conditioning coach) Rich (Hesketh) in the gym. The negro was also tied to a log and to the bed-post with ropes, which choked him, and he was kicked and stamped by Souther. At last, when I said that I had to go at once to Natasha’s, and that I was late, she started, and informed me that she had forgotten the chief thing. “This wounds me deeply, I will have you know,” he told them between signatures. If people choose to ruin their possessions, I don’t know what’s to be done. As defending champion, Palmer had to help Player into the green jacket.. I saw white men at work, and no slave smarting beneath the lash. But they can be a little unsightly in the middle of a nice green lawn. Johnny Hrabovsky fired a shot through traffic from the left point that was saved by Mike Rotolo. During that time, he obtained his law degree from the Southern College of Law and was licensed to practice by dolce gabanna adidași bărbații the State of Tennessee. They emerged in a brick vault thrice the size of the winesink above. I was, in fact, her secret and mysterious lover. Designer Nike AirMax are only 1 type of them, I helpful to have the environment Max 180 during this exact nike air max 2015 womens pink colorway. 2009,"The Chamber of Commerce is the business community. Above them streamed the stag-and-lion of the boy who sat upon the Iron Throne a sandalias doradas gioseppo thousand leagues away.. Air Force scored three goals in the final 3:06 of the game as the Falcons defeated Bentley, 5 1, in an Atlantic Hockey Conference game Saturday, Feb. I know that I am ruined and that I’m ruining others. "Rachael spontaneously stated it 'seemed like she was coming at me with a picture frame' and this has happened before like deja vu. In the far distance, sunlight shimmered off deep water. Interestingly enough, they were competing with themselves as the 3.2GHz 965 held the pole position up to that point. With the benefit of hindsight, you could again wish the effort had landed in izraeli kézműves ékszerek the River Market district, as once discussed, though its location by the Little Rock National Airport, air jordan aj4 if off the beaten path, had some logic. Mostly, it involves underwater scenes, though. The big white direwolf would not lie still. Clearly, the lemurs are the stars of Journey to Madagascar, which opens Saturday. Come along! We’ll have a little chat and then part for another ten years. A lot of Jelly in my arsenal. He literally “obeyed in all things” his “masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.” If his conduct exhibits the slightest departure from a literal fulfilment of this injunction of Scripture, it is in a case which must command the approbation of the most rigid casuist; for the injunction of obedience extends, of course, only to lawful commands. “My face is still the same.”. I’m an old man, ail insulted father. We are particularly saddened that Mrs. They may ask for … ah … recompense for those who lost their lives to the dragon’s wroth. Again, the Focus will turn more heads inside with its cool blue lighting, while the switchgear has a slightly higher quality feel. “I was praying,” she told the Naathi girl. According to the port, the oneil mellény Hillsboro Airport is the second busiest airport in the state. Help me, explain our present position. She was in a fever and slightly delirious. Mount St. Blake was 16 and Paige 13 when the cheques started arriving in the post. "My family was wondering when I was going to get a real job," she recalls.. Are trying to work on the relationships and trying to work together, Lehmann said. He was not a tall man, Tormund Giantsbane, but the gods had given him a broad chest and massive belly. The key clicked three times, very softly, as the kindly man turned it in a lock. Extreme weather wasn't a huge factor. In the years to come, he decided to go to medical school at the nike jean jacket University of Tennessee, where he graduated in 1955. I won't lie, I get a small pleasure from exiting the plane and walking right out the door, while everyone else has to wait and shoulder there way to their bags on the conveyor belt.

1 note · View note

cerberus253 · 4 years

Note

Drago's beloved girlfriend would be able to introduce him to the holidays? If she likes them, but not Drago. And what gift do you think you could give him?

Drago probably already knows a bunch of the main holidays celebrated in the USA, as well as why they were created and still celebrated. With that being said, I don’t think Drago would celebrate any of them, well, aside from Halloween because ‘tis the season to be spooky scary. If anything, he’d be okay with Halloween. despise Christmas and the 4th of July. and not care about the rest.

Like I just said, Drago would like Halloween because of it’s scary aesthetic and its “praising“ amongst monsters and darkness. He’d hate Christmas because of all the mushy, heartfelt, family stuff. Kindness and compassion for no reason other than just because? Pathetic! Weak! For the 4th of July, and really any holiday like it, Drago doesn’t like it because it celebrates independence of humans. I guess you could also put Valentine’s Day under the “hated holidays“ list, but I think Drago would find that one more annoying than anger inducing.

Now, if Drago had a human s/o, they’d probably get him involved with some of them. Those like Valentines Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc are really about being with family and expressing their affection/thankfulness to one another. Yeah, it all has human origins, but it’s also about in general love. Dude’s a grinch because he never felt loved, and therefore probably resents emotional holidays. However, since he is now with someone who absolutely ADORES him, he may start seeing it in a better light, even if it’s for slight selfish reasons on the surface (”Yes! Rain your gifts upon me!”). In addition, I don’t think Drago would be too warm towards strangers and relatives during these holidays even if he understands their meanings now, but he would warm with the s/o for obvious (attachment) reasons. Oh to imagine cuddling Drago under a warm blanket, drinking hot cocoa, watching a silly movie together, and then plopping a little Santa hat on his grumpy face. Imagine his surprise when you give him so many kisses for being so cute with that hat on~ *ahem* Anyways, insert every holiday movie classic with a person hating the holidays at first, but then finally shown the love they never knew, and then they finally understand the true meaning of compassion and family, and boom, ya got Drago’s “appreciating the holidays“ arc.

The next set of holidays would be those that fall under Easter, Saint Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, Halloween, etc. I’m not sure how most people view these holidays, but I look at them as “Fun Activities“ holidays. So, of course Drago would be from neutral to against for most of them for their origins or the “silly, pointless stuff“ one does, but again, once the s/o celebrates these holidays with/in front of him, he’d be a little more open with them. For example, Easter. Easter’s origins is about the resurrection of Christ, and for some reason you go on an egg hunt for goodies and prizes. Yeah, sounds dumb, BUT it could be some innocent fun if done right. The whole activity is to search for metaphorical/literal treats, whether it be chocolate, little toys, stuff you could actual use (stamps, bookmarks, jewelry, etc), etc. It’s all a treasure hunt, and really just about every creature that targets gaining happiness and satisfaction harbors curiosity. Drago would think it’s stupid, but just wait and see what his reaction(s) would be if you hid some stuff around the house, putting some riddled notes with a small piece of chocolate in every single one, and ultimately it leads to his Grande Surprise! He’ll want to resist it at first, but curiosity and greed will get the best of him, and if ya do it right, ya might get him like a cat looking for the scurrying mouse. Er, that last part might be romanticizing things, but still, so cuuute~

And just a quick note with the others, 4th of July is really about getting together, having a cook out and/or a camp out, and watching amazing fireworks to please that primordial brain part of ‘Ooo, shiny!’. Saint Patrick’s Day is purely about hanging out with friends, and Halloween is pretty obvious: Sweets and Scares all the way babyyyy.

Downside to all of this, Drago might catch on to it all being “required to socialize on these specific days,” when in reality nothing is stopping anyone with doing these same activities any other day of the year, well, aside from society telling you “no,“ and maybe needing a permit to do fireworks on any other day of the year, but my point still stands. You can hang out with people any day you want, give gifts whenever you want, and throw parties and gatherings whenever you want.

Holidays are specialized days to do these “extravagant“ activities all around the world and people will understand and be a part of it, but still, it feels all a little forced, ya know? It feels so much better to do something for someone on a whim than doing it because it’s a holiday, which makes it all feel required. Drago would definitely argue this at some point (and I totally agree with it with Christmas and kind of Halloween), but just actually have him Do the Things with you and be a part of something instead of being cut off all the time, he’ll warm up a little bit to it; just a little though. Maybe.

Reiterating, I personally believe people don’t like most holidays either because a lot of people who celebrate it are fucking annoying, or it’s because the former people never had a proper one, let alone had company and any good emotional attachments with anyone. So, what it comes down to is social animals need, well, to socializing, and the lack thereof drives one crazy, insane, and can and will cause mental problems. In a sense, holidays are important so social animals can get together for a yearly dose of needed chemicals to produce within them so they don’t break and become self destructive.

...

A-Anyways, that got a little deep. So, uh, what gifts would I give Drago... Well, he does come off as the type of person to not want anything unless they had some physical use to him, but there probably is some stuff he’d like just to have. So, I’d personally focus on getting him things he would use, like some cool-ass jackets and, if possible, some spellbooks so he can learn new magic stuffs. Ugh, I’m not good at giving gifts... The stuff that would make me feel like I gave him something worthwhile would be hand-made art pieces. I would LOVE to just... make things for him. A portrait of him, a sculpture of a fearsome Chinese dragon, a hand-made necklace, wood carved Chinese Zodiac animals, Bob Ross paintings of what his fantasy palace would look like, a hand knit blanket and/or sweater and gloves, etc. I never feel like “just buying something“ is ever good enough and I need to actually make something because that is the closest thing to the heart a gift can be. Going out and buying things, well, I guess imperial and Chinese looking things because of his heritage, aesthetic, and the suggested power Imperial China gives off.

But yeah, the best gifts would probably be things that he can actually use and its design or whatever is something that pleases him. So, uh, Chinese Dragon biker jacket, dawg. Maybe some finger less, fire resistant gloves or something.

#ask #anon #jackie chan adventures #drago #holidays #gifts

6 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 4 years

Text

INTERVIEW: Jeff Trammell Speaks on Craig of the Creek and its Anime Influences

In celebration of Black History Month, Crunchyroll is releasing interviews with prominent Black figures across the anime world! Stay tuned for more announced features, or donate to Black Girls Code, which educates young girls of color to encourage careers in computer science and technology!

Anime has had and continues to have a huge impact across the globe, and that impact can be found more and more in Western animation! Kids who watched anime on Toonami are growing up and creating series of their own that take with them that seed of affection for the medium. One such creator is Jeffrey Trammell, the head writer of Cartoon Network's Craig of the Creek. Cameron Trentalange, our Associate Manager of Social Video, was lucky enough to talk with Jeff about his work on the series, his love of anime, and how the two are intertwined. See the video interview below, followed by a complete and uncut transcription of the full interview!

youtube

Crunchyroll: Thank you for taking time to meet with us. We’re really excited to be chatting with you today. To get things started, if you could just introduce yourself to our audience, your name and what it is that you do.

Jeffrey Trammell: My name is Jeff Trammell and I am the head writer, as well as a voice actor, on Craig of the Creek.

How has anime influenced or inspired your work?

How hasn't anime influenced my work? It’s been such a big part of everything we do. Everything I do as a writer … We're constantly thinking back to the storytelling, the kind of one arc, one-off episodes, as well as arc-long stories ... it’s really allowed us to use anime as a bit of a blueprint for the stuff we wanna do on Craig. Anime is a big part of the show. A lot of people on the crew grew up watching things like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon and Evangelion. Samurai Champloo gets brought up a lot, too. So, any chance that we can get to kinda pay homage to those classic shows as well as the other stuff we’re into, we kinda jump at the chance to do.

via Cartoon Network

That’s awesome. Are there any other specific elements that reflect your experience with anime in Craig of the Creek or your other works? I know the Elders of the Creek seem to be very pulled from people you might meet in the fandom.

I would say I'm a bit more of a casual fan. There's people on the crew that are certainly closer to the Elders of the Creek. I'm more like Craig in that I have my own certain fandoms that I'm into. But yeah, anime is such a big part of the show in the weirdest ways — every episode has something we're sneaking in. Our crew early on would meet to do anime nights, so we would watch The Castle of Cagliostro or Totoro ... stuff like that. It's very ingrained in our crew.

That’s awesome. That sounds like a super fun environment to be a part of.

It’s really great when your workday ends and you’re just hanging out watching anime and playing D&D. Like there’s no complaints on our end.

Craig of the Creek often dips its toes into referencing anime, whether it's a background gag or, as you mentioned, an entire episode-long narrative like "Bring Out Your Beast." It sounds like, as a community, you and the team are largely inspired by anime. Was that kind of a coincidence that everyone was into anime or was that intentional in the structuring of the team?

Our crew consists of a lot of younger writers and creators, so naturally the stuff we grew up watching included so much anime and the stuff aired on Toonami. Even the co-creators, Matt Burnett and Ben Levin are like, really big into this stuff. You go to their office and there's like the entire Evangelion set, or all of Dragon Ball. I think they really created a show full of people who they wanted to be around, who were all going to tell really fun stories. I think it just happened that anime was such a big part of everyone's life on the show.

It’s kind of amazing to see how much anime has influenced so many people throughout the industry. You mentioned that you guys would do different movie nights for watching anime. Do you have any specific anecdotes or moments from working with the teams where you intentionally wrote an anime reference into the script and someone pointed it out later, or maybe an animator just added something entirely without it even being in the script? Are they any fun little kind of instances like that?

Yes. There’s a lot of instances where I’ll write something in the script and then at the boarding stage, the boarders would take it so far out. We did an episode where the Elders get trapped under Elder Rock and there's a bit about them having a very cool replica shovel from an anime called Shovelmaster Gorobi Q that I put in there. Immediately, it just became this whole other thing where the basis of the show was that this person's soul is trapped in the shovel, so if you use it, you can tap into their spirit. One of the Elders is in love with the character who inhabits the shovel ... it's wild! I never expected that whole story to come out of this one line I wrote.

via Cartoon Network

That's incredible. One of my favorite little background gags is one of the posters for a show called Sadboy Pilotgeddon.

Yes.

Was that written into the script, or was it an element someone else wrote in?

That was our storyboard artist Ashley Tahilan who is usually the impetus for those crazy moments in the show. She put in Sadboy Pilotgeddon really early on, and I think she's also the reason Shovelmaster Gorobi Q became the absurd thing that it is.

I love it. In one of the very early episodes, there was a character who was holding up a volume of manga and says, "you read manga backwards." I feel like I have said that verbatim as a kid!

via Cartoon Network

That was a really fun moment. We were trying to introduce the ninja kids who just hang out and read manga. We thought when you're introducing someone to manga, you can't start without saying, "Well, ya read it backwards!" We decided we NEEDED to put that in the show.

It was very true to life. I love those little moments. Speaking more generally, what does it mean to be a head writer on a TV show?

Being a head writer means a lot of different things depending on the show. On Craig, it's nice because I get to be the link between the writing and the storyboard artists. Our show is very cohesive in that it's very storyboard driven. That means we take the premise and outline and then hand it off to the storyboard artists, and they draw everything, including dialog. Then we come back together and they'll pitch their work to us. We'll make sure that we pitch ideas and jokes, and really punch it up to make it stronger. We have this kind of cohesion where everyone gets to really leave their stamp on the episode. Being a head writer means overseeing that process, the writing room, recording, assisting with directing, sometimes getting in on editing. It's so much more than just running the room. It's been a really cool experience for me. I get to follow the stories not just from their initial creation, but all the way to their end, which has been really cool.

That sounds so incredible. So, how did you break into being a head writer, as opposed to different writing roles?

I actually have only been a writer here in LA for about five years. Before that, I was a security guard at Target, oddly enough. I've always had an interest in writing, and I wanted to break in, but I didn't know how. I was able to find out about a yearly contest called the Nickelodeon Writing Program, where you would enter scripts and, out of around 2,000 applicants, they choose up to four people every year. They move you out to LA, and you get to work at Nickelodeon as a writer. You get to learn, you get paid, and you get all these amazing perks. I got to take improv and sketch writing, just all of these incredible things. When I moved out here once I finished up at Nickelodeon, I eventually found my way to Cartoon Network. I started working with Matt and Ben on Craig of the Creek. I was a staff writer for the first year, and by the second season, I was promoted to head writer. I've been very fortunate, the way I got in. I think it was a lot of "right place at right time," but also luckily having the skills to back it up that led to this quick rise.

That's amazing, what an incredible journey!

Thank you!

To be selected from over 2,000 writers — I think that says a lot about the talent you have.

Thanks, that's really cool.

In addition to Craig of the Creek, I know you have also worked on shows like The Owl House, and you mentioned that you spent some time at Nickelodeon. What is it like to write specifically for animation?

Writing for animation is tough because there's a lot of visual storytelling you have to be aware of. You are also writing for someone else. I think if you're writing novels or similar stuff, you can write the story exactly as it is in your mind and someone else can read it and see where you're coming from. When you're writing for animation, though, you have to be aware that whatever you write, someone else has to draw. Someone else has to design. Everything you write is going to be on someone else, so it's tempering all of those expectations you have for your own writing. You have to tell a fun, captivating story without pushing it too far, or making every shot a crowd scene. Then people would have to animate 50 people running by in every shot. It's a very intricate level of storytelling where you have to really see what the most important parts of the story are and convey that.

That's an interesting point. I think there's this sense with animation of like, "Well the options are limitless because I can just draw it!" But then there's the realization of, "Ah, well that burden is laid on a bunch of people who actually have to animate the thing."

Yes.

I imagine there's a good amount of give and take there. Did you always want to break into animation, specifically? Has animation been a passion for you?

Yes and no. I mean, I've always wanted to work in animation because I've been a fan my whole life. A lot of people have that teenage phase where they think, "I'm too adult for cartoons," and they kind of move away from it, but I've never done that. I've always appreciated animation. But I also appreciate live-action. The first time I got to work on an animated show was Harvey Beaks at Nickelodeon, and I really got to work with that crew and see everything that went into creating 11 minutes of television. It's so much work from so many people. It's like watching a conveyor belt in action. Seeing those things really laying out in front of me gave me a brand new appreciation, even more so. Since then, I've known animation is definitely where I want to be.

via Cartoon Network

That's so cool. Craig of the Creek features such a wide cast of characters. How do you and the team approach writing for so many different voices from different backgrounds? I think the thing that's been really successful for us has been to reach beyond our writing room. At the end of the day, we only have so many experiences and can only write from so many perspectives. Our crew is dedicated to representing perspectives people may not have gotten to see growing up. So, we reach beyond our room to the crew. People are welcome to share their stories, welcome to pitch ideas for stories and characters. We really want to make sure that at the end of the day, we're making a show that people are not only proud to work on, but that they're excited to show it to their family and friends.

Is it common for writing teams to be structured in a way where they have opportunities to work across other departments, or is that harder to find?

It really depends on the show. I've been on shows where the writers only hang out with writers and the artists only hang out with artists. Coming from Harvey, which was a very closely connected group, I knew that was something I wanted when I was starting on Craig. Matt and Ben had come from Steven Universe, so I knew they wanted the same things. Early on, we really made an effort to make sure our group was close and our crew was excited to hang out, to talk and share ideas. It's kinda been ingrained from the very beginning of the show.

I love hearing about the kind of collaborative environment. So, I know you've lended your voice to one of the characters on Craig, and that you've done voiceover for other cartoons as well. Did you always have an interest in voice acting, too?

I've wanted to be a voice actor since I was a kid! I was definitely that one kid who recognized voices in shows. I was like, "Oh that's Phil LaMarr!" I immediately knew! I always thought it was cool — it was this way to embody a character. You really get to step into their shoes and become someone else in a way that's similar to writing. I've wanted to be a voice actor forever, so it was fortunate that I finally got that opportunity on Craig. It was really nerve-wracking, though! You go into the recording booth and it's really quiet, and you're immediately aware of every single noise, like the weird click your tongue makes when you speak. Everything is hyper-focused. But it's been really cool. I appreciate them giving me the opportunity to really get to do it on Craig. I was able to transition into other opportunities by doing voices on this show called The Fungies! at Cartoon Network. I have a blast every time!

You touch on something really interesting, which is how writing and voice acting both go hand in hand in terms of getting into the head of a character. What have you learned about writing through voice acting and vice versa?

The thing I've learned about writing from voice acting is that, even if I'm not sure of a joke while writing it, actors are so talented that they can usually deliver it in a way I wasn't expecting. They'll usually knock it out of the park every time. It's also really taught me to write to someone's strengths — just knowing that one actor is really good at these frantic moments lets me know that I can really play them up in the writing. Or maybe another actor is great at delivering heart and emotions, so we can make sure to nail their speech. Being in the booth really taught me that voice acting is so difficult, so I want to make sure we're setting up everyone who enters that booth for success with the best script we can give them, the best lines we can give them, and really set them up to knock it out of the park. It's this weird sort of symbiosis where you each try to prop one another up. Going from each side, from one side of the glass to the other, has shown me that I think we both just want to make sure we're. giving the actors the best material we can, and actors just want to provide us with the best performances that they can.

via Cartoon Network

It's really interesting to hear how that all comes together, and how both of those perspectives are sort of similar in some ways. I'm curious, how did the conversation about you voice acting in Craig of the Creek start?

I was able to find my way into the booth by begging a lot! Haha, not really, but it's one of these things I had to speak up early about and just say, "Just so you guys know, this is something I'm passionate about. This is something I've really wanted to do." I couldn't be afraid to take those risks, even in a room where I'm pitching a character, putting myself out there with a goofy voice, hoping that I'm impressing them with the passion I'm giving these characters. Luckily, it worked out, and I think they appreciated my drive and how much respect I have for the craft of voice acting. I was also taking voice acting classes as well, so I was really not shy in letting them know that this was something I seriously wanted to pursue.

I know on Rocko's Modern Life, one of the writers just kept inserting his voice audition in the pile, and finally, someone was like, "This one is really good, who is this?" and he was like "It's me!" I'm always curious about those little moments for everybody.

I wish I had known about that story, I might have gone that route!

The sneaky route!

Plan B, you know.

Another question I wanted to ask is, how does it feel to know that people resonate with your work? Your writing and acting contributions to the show are excellent, and the series is a lot of fun for both kids and adults. There's something about it that just captures the charming innocence of being a kid with a big imagination. Everything is whimsical, but there is a lot of grounded humor and references to pop culture we all love. What does it feel like to have your work reach so many people?

First, thank you for all of those kind words about the show, I really appreciate that. It means so much. I think it's one thing when you're working on something and you get caught up in it and think of it as a day to day gig. But Craig has never felt like that. Early on, it felt very special. The crew felt special, and we were all proud of what we were making. We were all hoping that people would relate to it and really have fun watching it. So, seeing everybody watch all of these moments where we have Sparkle Cadet and people really resonate with a black magical girl in a Western animated show ... Seeing people resonate with our various Slide the Ferret gags which may or may not be related to Sonic — I cannot say legally. Seeing the very heartfelt stuff, the family stuff, the stuff you don't see a lot, and watching people see those things and feel good and feel validated ... it's been incredible. It means so much, more than I can really put into words. It's just a really good feeling, and I feel proud of the stuff we're doing and continuing to do.

via Cartoon Network

You and the team are doing awesome work. One of my friends recommended the show to me a while ago, and once I started watching I was like, "Yeah, I get it." There's just something really nice about it. Also, Jeff Rosenstock's music is just great.

Jeff's the best! Jeff's the absolute best. Every time he sends some music in, I'm like, "How do you do it?"

Do you guys work together at all? Is there a "meeting of the Jeffs"?

Oh, all the time. I'm very fortunate to call Jeff a friend. He's one of the coolest people I know. I think we're constantly in awe of each other, which makes for an interesting friendship. He's so talented and so funny, and he makes everything look so easy. It's kind of unfair how talented he is, but I couldn't be a bigger fan of Jeff, he's great.

Something I was curious about is if you had any influence on the music. The music really makes the scene sometimes, and then you have the opening and ending songs. Do you work with the music at all as a lead writer, like finding the right vibes for a scene or writing lyrics with Jeff? There's an episode where Craig sings in front of a live crowd, and I was curious what the creative process was like on an episode like that.

Jeff and I worked together on a musical episode called "In the Key of the Creek," where Jeff came to town. He was living in New York at the time and came to town for a week, and would sit in the writing room while we were breaking the story. He would just write these songs or he'd go home and like three hours later send us a demo saying, "Yo! I came up with this today." And it's like ... how?! This is incredible! Usually, Ben Levin, one of the co-creators, works directly with Jeff, but he's been very open to working with the rest of the crew. The episode you mentioned, "Vulture's Nest" ... I believe Tiffany Ford, one of our directors, wrote that song with Jeff. He's very open and accessible to working with the crew for songs and different episodes, which has been really cool.

via Cartoon Network

I have to circle back to this ... you mentioned Slide the Ferret — who may or may not be related to any other legal entity — but UNRELATED TO THAT ... As someone who is a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog (and also ferrets, coincidentally), Slide the Ferret really speaks to me. I was like, "This rocks. I love everything about this." I'm curious, was Sonic a big part of your childhood? Or the childhoods of the rest of the staff?

Yes, Sonic 2 was the first video game I ever beat, actually. I would always get to the plane level and then have to hand it off to my sister. I remember when I finally beat Metal Sonic and Robotnik, and I felt like I was the greatest gamer in the world. So much of our crew has similar feelings about Sonic. Slide the Ferret came into the show very early. I think Matt and Ben came up with the character very early into the show. And then, I think the second the crew was like "oh, this is our Sonic and we can create all the lore?" it just got out of hand. There's like this show within the show loosely based on Dragon Ball where there's these things called the Chaos Orbs that you collect. They're like the Chaos Emeralds but we treat them like Dragon Balls.

It's been great! It's been so cool to watch our design team really take that world and expand it even more. There's this character named Claus the Badger who is the coolest looking character I've ever seen. I keep pestering them to let me voice him, so we'll see how that goes.

That sounds like so much fun! I always love whenever there's a Slide moment. I'm just like, "Yup! I'm here for it." I'd like to know, what are some of your favorite anime?

Oh man, okay. One of my favorites is My Hero Academia — shout out to my buddy Zeno who plays Hawks as well as The Green Pancho on Craig of the Creek. I've been enjoying Fire Force, The Promised Neverland, I love Dragon Ball Z, of course. What else ... Samurai Champloo — I used to watch that one every week with my dad, so it's special for me. I could name stuff all day, and I know I'm forgetting some. After I'm done, I know I'll be like, "Aw crap! Why didn't I mention this ..." But these are the ones I'll go with.

Is there any message you want to share with fans of your work?

Yes! If you want to see more, please find me on Twitter @MrJeffTrammell. I post about my work too much there. I would also say that there is so much more fun stuff on the way. If you are a fan of Craig of the Creek and you love anime, there may or may not be an episode coming up in which the Elders do an anime convention. It may also feature Slide the Ferret and a cavalcade of characters from that video game. Definitely keep your eyes peeled for that.

This has been wonderful! It's been really cool to hear about your background with the show and how you broke into the industry. Thank you.

Thank you so much to Crunchyroll for having me!

via Cartoon Network

You can follow Jeff Trammell on Twitter @MrJeffTrammell. Craig of the Creek airs on Cartoon Network and is available on HBOMax and Hulu.

By: Guest Author

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

5 notes · View notes

midoriyasbones · 4 years

Photo

so i drew for the first time in a while, just a head, but it turned out pretty well considering i’m not an artist.

she’s a rwby oc, her name is vibrancy, and did i choose her name just so her nickname could be vibes? p e r h a p s. anyways, her character is inspired by akali from the k/da popstars video. i just really enjoy her color scheme, so i kind of stole that. another character that i used as a reference was ashnikko, the rapper. her stage personality that’s just bright colors and electro vibes. that’s kind of what i wanted to go for. vibrancy is also inspired by graffiti too. in fact, her abilities are focused around paint and colors.

i’ll spare y’all who don’t care and put the rest under the cut. if you do read, please drop some feedback!

she’s really colorful in my head, i wish i could do her justice. she’s got silvery hair that glows in uv light. it’s constantly flecked with paint and the tips are just stained with neon colors at this point. in a casual setting she wears a dark jacket/hoodie over a white shirt with a neon sort of graphic design. then, pain splattered jean shorts, and similarly stained sneakers. i think she’d probably wear overalls at home maybe, but always long sleeved shirts/a jacket that she can roll up and down. the mask is really only used in battle and when doing art so she doesn’t breathe in fumes, and i might add goggles too, like the laboratory goggles.

god i wish i could actually draw because i have so many more ideas for her outfit and design over all.

her semblance is called ‘life drawing’ and basically what she draws comes to life. she can manipulate these drawings in various ways. they can take may forms, but are most commonly animals. her favorite thing to draw is a dragon as she can get really creative with them. her drawings can’t exactly replicate the forms they take. though they can move and deal damage (through directly attacking the aura), they can’t speak and if anyone but vibes tries to communicate with them, they won’t understand. they can’t impact the surrounding environment or do anything supernatural even if vibrancy draws them with that power. so no breathing fire or anything like that.

the drawings’ durability, strength, and other properties are tied to how they are drawn. to maximize her ability, she uses a special kind of ink that fuses with her aura. this also means she has limits to how much she can use. if she knows she’ll be needing something big, she can draw it before heading out on the mission and activate it later. she keeps them on scrolls. she also has stampers of her most commonly used designs. the downside of stamping is that they can’t be as large and they aren’t as durable or powerful. usually, her drawings can take up to 4 blows if well put together (though if slashed they ‘bleed out’ quickly’), but stamps can only take one hit, two tops.

vibrancy can also use her blood to create her drawings. her blood actually creates the most powerful results, but she can’t just use her blood all the time. it’s a sort of emergency thing. she can get quite a lot out of just a few drops, but it’s not sustainable. likewise, she can also draw with her saliva and tears, but they are not nearly as reliable.

when she doesn’t use her semblance, she fights in various paint themed ways. she has spray ‘paint’ infused with dust. she just sprays it on and just has to activate it like anyone else. great for explosions. she also has smoke bombs that create thick, dense clouds she conceal herself in. they can also be filled with dust if they need to be. her arsenal includes a paint gun too. it’s not technically a paint gun, though it can be used as one (and often is). the bullets, real or pigment, are always colorful.

paint is a pretty versatile medium, so i feel like this gives me a lot of options to play with when it comes to what she can do. i kind of want to incorporate painter’s tape into it? but i don’t know how yet. also, i imagine that staying undercover can be a challenge for her as she probably leaves every fight scene an absolute disaster. god same though.

for her personality, she’s pretty spunky and high energy, but i wouldn’t call her a hot head. she can stay pretty level headed in stressful situations. when insulted, she tries to just let it bounce off her even if she can’t come up with a good comeback to counter the remark. by acting unaffected she hopes to make the other guy look foolish. overall, she just tries to keep her cool.

that’s not to say she can’t get passionate. she’s pretty strong headed and defiant at times. she doesn’t mind following people’s directions if there is a clear goal and a solid reason to do so, but she won’t just blindly listen to anyone. if she doesn’t see a reason to go along with someone, she won’t. she can be a firebrand in that way. a rebel with a cause. when she is causing mayhem and uproar though, she causes a LOT of it. she gets loud, and nothing is off limits.

vibrancy is a control freak, plain and simple. she’s fine with creating physical mess with paint and being disorganized in general, but the minute something in her life falls out of place, she’s prone to anxiety and depression. in desperation to fix things, she often makes it worse. these moments are when her mask of calm slip to reveal a girl who’s actually terrified of how the world sees her. she feels doomed to be unsuccessful because she isn’t like the long line of traditional artists in her family. it manifests most prominently in her interpersonal relationships causing a lot of strife.

songs for vibrancy:

pop/stars (k/da),

trantrum (ashnikko)

flutter (virtual riot)

we came to smash (martin solveig)

i won’t let you walk away (mako)

firebird (galantis)

beat of my drum (POWERS)

don’t worry (madcon)

#rwby #my ocs #vibrancy

10 notes · View notes

duhragonball · 5 years

Text

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12: Fusion Reborn (2/6)

This time around, I’ll try to explain just what Janemba is, exactly, and why he’s a big deal. But to do that, we have to get through the first ten minutes of this movie, so...

Movie 12 opens at the Grand Kai Planet, then pans to an asteroid orbiting the planet, where there’s a stadium hosting a tournament. I never really paid attention to it before, but this is a whole other venue than the one used in DBZ 196-199. If nothing else, this arena has a big green ring. It looks like it’s made ouf of jade or something. It’s a really nice touch.

I always assumed that the idea here was to hold a second Otherworld Tournament, since the one from Episodes 196-199 ended without a winner. Then again, it’s been seven years since that event, so it seems odd that they would have waited so long. On the other hand, everyone involved is either dead or a Kai, so seven years may not seem like that long a wait.

King Kai, also known as the North Kai, is feeling really confident, since his top fighter, Goku, dominated the last tournament. As before, East Kai and South Kai’s camps aren’t doing very well at all.

But South Kai is still confident, since one of his fighters is still in the semifinals. The subs refer to him as “Clove”, but I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Frog, or “Frogue” as he’s credited in the Funimation version.

So he and King Kai bicker about who’s gonna win, but Goku beats Frogue with a single kick, and I’m pretty sure the bout was shorter than their argument.

Meanwhile, Pikkon defeats Aqua, aka Argua, in the other semifinal match. I guess Aqua must have improved over the past seven years to have made it this far.

So that eliminates the East and South Galaxies from the tournement. South Kai immediately starts rooting for Pikkon just to spite King Kai. It’s kind of weird how Pikkon is a West Galaxy guy, but we don’t hear a lot from West Kai in this movie. Maybe South Kai got the nod because he was actually in the manga, so he’s more “canonical” than the West or East Kais.

So the final match is Goku vs. Pikkon, in a rematch of their epic match from Episodes 198 and 199. That ended in a draw when both men touched the ceiling of the arena, and maybe that’s why they switched the venue this time.

Both men do Respect Knuckles and the match begins.

What I like about this movie is that this isn’t even the main story, but it totally could have been. Toei did a five episode arc about the Grand Kai holding a tournament of all these dead fighters. They could have done a movie that was just a sequel to that arc. I don’t know how well-received it would have been, but I would have gone for it. Maybe a new fighter dies and joins this group in the afterlife, and Goku has trouble against him. Maybe you have Broly escape hell and crash the tournament. There’s a lot of cool things you can do with this, but you could just have Goku and Pikkon fight some more.

But Movie 12 has even bigger things to get to, so this is just a scene to establish some of the characters. And that’s how this movie rolls. You could expand this story into a twenty-or-thirty-episode saga very easily.

So we move on to King Yemma’s place, which the dub refers to as the “Check-In Station.” I’m not super-familiar with Japanese mythology concerning the afterlife, but my understanding is that when you die, you go to King Yemma for judgement. DBZ satirizes this idea by having the dead people’s souls wait in line, and all the oni who work for Yemma are like white collar wage slaves, and King Yemma has a desk with a big rubber stamp to notarize each soul’s fate.

In this particular scene, they’re having a busy day, probably echoing the episodes from the Buu Saga where millions of people were showing up every few minutes while Majin Buu was wiping out the Earth’s population. Yemma’s basically zipping right through these guys, which I think is meant to be ironic. I feel like the real King Yemma is supposed to take longer to examine a person’s moral character.

Anyway, if you get sent to Heaven, you’re escorted to this big aircraft that flies you to a planet somewhere in Otherworld. We’ll see it later in the Fusion Saga, but the plane was last seen in Episode 195, although Goku used a second, smaller plane to travel to the Grand Kai Planet.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure this hole that opens up in the wall is new. In Episode 195, Goku and King Kai just walked through a doorway.

If you’re condemned to Hell, you have to go through a machine to cleanse your soul of evil. I was under the impression that hell itself was meant to do that, but this franchise can never make up its mind about how hell works.

According to Episode 237, when you’re a bad person and you die, you don’t get to keep your body like Goku did, and your soul is eventually purged of memory, and reincarnated as a new life form. I don’t know how much of that is based on actual Japanese mythology, if any, but at least in DBZ, the idea of hell is not to act as a place of eternal suffering for the wicked. It’s more like a very long jail sentence, designed to redeem the wicked so that they can proceed onto reincarnation or maybe some other phase of existence. The suffering is part of the rehabilitation process.

I think that’s why Frieza still had his body in Movie 15, even after so many years in hell. They let him keep it, but only so he could experience greater torment. In theory, he would get so worn down that he would come to accept his punishment as the rightful consequence of all his evil deeds, and then his body would dissipate and he would lose his memory and identity. But Frieza’s such a hateful bitch that he hung in there long enough to get wished back to life.

On the other hand, these souls are all formless clouds. It seems like only important characters get to keep their bodies in hell. That may just be a convenience for the audience, or maybe stronger bad guys can maintain their physical form more easily. Maybe that’s why they didn’t send Frieza through this machine. He would have gummed up the works and broken it. Maybe it’s only used for the not-so-evil souls who are easier to deal with. Instead of spending 100,000 years climbing the needle mountain, they can just go through the cleansing machine and move on.

Whatever the case, this movie establishes that a machine cleans souls and extracts their evil residue in the form of a dark purple liquid that gets stored in special tanks.

And they have an oni on duty to keep an eye on things and switch out the tanks when they get full. But it’s a dull job, and the pay sucks, so he listens to a Walkman and plays air guitar to help pass the time.

But King Yemma’s sending an awful lot of people to hell today. He’s not even taking a break for lunch. So that waste tank’s going to fill up quickly.

Okay, I just realized that all of these guys wear tiger-striped clothes, and I think that’s because oni in folklore wear tiger-skins. They do in Yu Yu Hakusho, and I assume they dress a little more authentically there. Their version of King Yemma is treated like a bigger deal. Anyway, one of the older workers scolds the Tank Clerk for slacking off, and threatens him with a pay cut.

He also points out the rapidly filling tank, and the clerk seems enthusiastic about switching it, but he never actually does.

I really dig this guy’s jacket. That skull and crossbones looks cool.

But soon enough, there’s an overload on the waste system, and the line breaks. I guess the oni don’t believe in relief flanges, but maybe spiritual waste is too hazardous to release into the atmosphere. Well, it’s happening now.

Tank Clerk knows right away that he’s screwed. He’s worried for his job, and he has no idea what to do about a spill this big. I think it’s more than just the one tank breaking. Like, somehow it set off a chain reaction that blew all the other tanks they had sitting nearby. Man, OSHA would have a field day with this place. Why is Tank Clerk wearing shorts to work when he’s surrounded by toxic waste? What good is a fire extinguisher going to do? Does he have no idea how to respond to this situation? Who here does?

But then things go from bad to worse, as the spirit waste mutates him into some sort of bizarre creature.

Yeah, you might want to have a doctor take a look at that.

As soon as King Yemma hears what’s going on, he shits a brick. Those tanks contained accumulated evil from countless souls that have been through that cleansing machine. Why didn’t they dispose of any of it? Can it be destroyed? Is that Beerus’ job? Like he just shows up every hundred years and zaps the full tanks into oblivion? Well, he won’t be invented for another 18 years, so Yemma’s on his own for this one.

As for Tank Clerk, well he looks like this now.

Then he sits on top of Yemma’s building and... I’m not really sure what this is. Let’s start over. So this monster that was once the Tank Clerk only says one word, and that’s “Janemba”, which isn’t even a word, I think. So everyone calls him that like it’s his name.

Apparently his power is some sort of reality manipulation? That’s pretty vague, actually, since manipulating reality implies you can basically do anything, but what else can I call this? Janemba creates all these huge jellybean-looking crystals, and some of them used to be other objects, but maybe others were created from nothing. I think he encased Yemma’s palace in a crystal, but it sort of looks like he distorted the building at the same time.

Inside, things look pretty normal, but there’s some crystal formations within the building, and one of the ogres gets encased in it himself.

Also, Janemba can project his image in different parts of these crystals. Maybe this is meant to be simple reflections and refractions, but it seems more magical than that.

Yemma seems to understand what’s going on better than I do, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Janemba is the result of the tank clerk being possessed by the evil ki in the spirit waste. This gave him the ability to surround Yemma’s domain with a barrier, and that barrier has suspended Yemma’s control over the boundary between the living world and the afterlife. The only way to stop it is to defeat Janemba, and Yemma can’t very well do this while he’s trapped in his own stronghold.

As I think about it, I sort of wonder if it’s not just the spiritual waste and the evil ki it contains that gave Janemba this power. Maybe it has something to do with the Tank Clerk as well, since he’s an oni. Alone, he’s just a lowly subordinate of Yemma, but he must have some sort of power in matters of the living and the dead, and maybe all this evil ki amplified that to make him strong enough to thwart King Yemma.

But that only explains “how”. There’s still the question of “why?” It’s often pointed out that Janemba is a pretty weak villain because he doesn’t talk and he has no apparent goals or motives. But I think that’s a common trait with a lot of Dragon Ball villains.

Pilaf and Piccolo wanted to conquer the world, but I’m pretty sure both guys only said that because that’s such a stock answer. It’s a vague expression of desire for power and control, but Pilaf can’t even run more than two people at a time, and Piccolo only wanted to rule the world so he could destroy its people and stick it to Kami. I think you can lump in with that all the bad guys who wanted to be immortal: Garlic Junior, Frieza, Vegeta. Lord Slug only wished for youth, but that’s just because he lacked the imagination to wish or immortality. The ultimate point was just to eliminate any threats to their existing power.

Then you have guys like Turles and Dr. Wheelo, who only seemed to be interested in acquiring greater power for themselves. There were hints in Movies 2 and 3 about what those guys would do with their power once they had enough. Wheelo would probably continue doing evil experiments on the world, and Turtles maybe would have overthrown Frieza, but Turles strikes me as a free spirit, and he only wanted to be strong enough to keep guys like Frieza from hassling him. For all we know, Dr. Wheelo only wanted Goku’s body because he missed having sex.

Then you’ve got the revenge squad: Dr. Gero, Cooler, Crane Hermit, Paragus, Broly ‘93, Lord Jaguar, Babidi. All of these guys wanted blood in exchange for some personal slight that really isn’t worth it. Well, Jaguar didn’t actually want to kill anyone, but that only makes him an idiot. You don’t clone an army of bio-warriors unless you want someone dead.

The point I’m getting at here is that most of these guys have really lousy motivations, and that doesn’t even get into the villains with seemingly no motivations at all.

Commander Red wanted to be taller, which is so stupid he kept it a secret because he knew it was stupid, and the only guy he told ended up shooting him in the face because of how stupid it was.

Mercenary Tao was in it for money, even though he famously never paid for anything.

Tien wanted to kill people because he looked up to killers until they started killing people he liked.

Android 17 and Cell wanted to have fun. I’d throw 18 into that group, but honestly, I think she just sort of went along with whatever 17 did, which is almost sadder.

Who the hell knows what Bojack wanted? He got killed before he could really spell it out.

And then you have Majin Buu, who doesn’t even understand his own motivations. He thought he only killed people for fun, and then when he decided it was wrong, he stopped, only to transform into another form who wanted to fight, and then another form who killed people for its own sake.

Now these are all really shitty motivations, and yet at the same time a lot of these guys are classic villains. That’s because the thesis of Dragon Ball is that power without purpose is self-defeating. Goku uses his strength to improve himself and help others. The bad guys always try to use their power for selfish reasons, and it always leads to empty achievements. Conquests they can’t enjoy, endless searches for fulfillment, and pointless scrambling for even greater power. Any fool with a weapon can murder someone, so what difference does it make to rule the world or be the strongest in the universe if that’s all you know to do with your time?

What’s all of this have to do with Janemba? Remember, he’s been possessed with evil ki from a multitude of wicked souls. In other words, he’s got the distilled essence of the same thing that made all those other bad guys tick. Frieza, King Piccolo, whoever your favorite is, Janemba’s got the same urges times a billion. And this is what he’s become:

Just some goofy man-child-thing that only knows how to hit people and say his own name. He’s powerful, sure, but he doesn’t know what to do with all that power. I think it’s safe to assume he could do a lot more than we see in this movie, but this is as far as his imagination goes.

And that does resemble Majin Buu in a lot of ways. Let’s face it, Janemba is clearly a knockoff of Buu. I don’t think that’s a big shocker from a movie series that gave us such bold ideas as “Evil Goku” and “Frieza’s Brother” and “More Androids.”

But I do think Janemba has a bit more to offer than that, because unlike Buu, we get to witness his origin. Think about all the souls who went through that spirit cleansing machine. All of their evil desires were stripped away and concentrated into Janemba. What was their one common thought, the one sentiment that united them all? What was the one experience they all shared and would want to avenge? Here’s a hint:

I submit that Janemba represents the combined loathing of millions of souls towards King Yemma. But Yemma’s not their enemy; he’s just doing his job. The universe is designed to have Yemma pass judgement on the dead. That’s just the way it works. And once those damned souls pass through the cleanser, they can appreciate that with a newfound clarity. But the evil residue they left behind? That stuff is still sore about it.

And, to a point, I think that spiritual waste can find a kindred spirit in Tank Clerk, since he’s also kind of frustrated with the Way Things Are. He’d rather goof off and listen to his tunes, but he has to go to work and pay attention to his job. That’s no one’s fault, that’s just life. I don’t think Tank Clerk was ever angry about it, but the spirit waste comes from people who were, and when they got mixed together...

... You end up with a monster who’s made it his business to rebel against the natural order of the universe. He traps King Yemma, but doing so causes dominoes to fall all over creation. Maybe Janemba understands the consequences of this, or maybe he doesn’t, but he isn’t concerned with consequences. He’s just lashing out like a child who’s mad that he can’t have his own way. Well, your own way wrecks things for everyone else, Janemba, as we’ll soon see...

#dragon ball #2019dbliveblog #dbmovieliveblog #movie 12 #fusion reborn #the return of fusion!! goku and vegeta #goku #pikkon #janemba #king yemma #king kai #grand kai #south kai #east kai

31 notes · View notes

kingofthewilderwest · 6 years

Note

Hey just so you know your art is really shitty. I am talking about the one you did about book hiccup.

Oh you sweet, sweet summer chiiiiild!!!

I was drawing “shit” like this when I was sixteen - ten years ago! Ten years ago, and I could draw like this!

So why would I care what someone thinks of a small, five minute, no-erase doodle of mine? ^.^

Honestly, I’m in the middle of an artistic euphoria phase right now. Like, I’m legit having so much fun with visual arts - more than I have for years - and I’m delighted. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to talk about this latest exciting experience in my life! Maybe this’ll inspire some others as well? Art has been a highlight of the last few months, and even getting going on the topic now, chatting with you, is getting me happy and inspired and ready to tear out the next sheet of paper for a new bout of creativity. I’m trying my best not to start drawing NOW because of the topic you’ve brought up!

I’m working on proportions and muscle groups and more dynamic poses and figuring out digital art and testing new traditional art mediums and it’s just been a BLAST of creativity and exploration. I’m trying to figure out new styles for myself, branching WAY beyond my childhood focus of photorealism, into everything down to anime-style personalities. I’ve even checked out 3D modeling, dudes! I’m planning on exploring with cityscapes and character design and shape and color and... guys... guys... it’s literally such an exciting time for me right now.

Art is AMAZING fun!!! What a blessing it is to create something wholly new, with the stamp of our personality, out of complete nothingness? I turned the nothingness of a piece of paper into my personality and a work of creativity. DUDE THAT IS SO AWESOME!!! Humans are so amazing in our ability to endlessly create. I think creating is one of the greatest powers and blessings our species has to offer.

Being a visual artist by hobby isn’t about improving. It isn’t even about being good. It’s about having fun. My wonderful dragon-loving friends, don’t for a second think that your artwork needs to be to some sort of quality, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. If you want to improve, that’s awesome, and I’m rooting for you to have some exciting experiences of self-discovery and growth. That can be an exciting time, to go through growth, and it’s well-worth your commendable, diligent efforts. But it’s also 100% fair if you go into a hobby without desiring to improve. You don’t need to improve - you’re not in some competition where your rent’s pay hinges on drawing - you just need to enjoy yourself. There is nothing shameful about “shitty” art - it’s in fact one of the coolest things you can do, because it engages your mind and your creativity and your own unique stamp of human beauty that no other soul can give. And if you share it, you’re sharing a part of yourself, and we get to see the beautiful treasure you and your mind are!

Some of my favorite things I’ve ever seen are stick people. DRAW your stick people! Do it all!!!

I’m so thankful for everyone who shares their art on tumblr in the fandom community. Not just the people who do polished digital work, but everyone. People who are starting to figure out what a tablet is. People who haven’t touched a colored pencil in ten years. People who draw five minute scratches. People who spend thirty-seven hours on a painting. You contribute to the world of fandom, the beautiful world of fandom. Together we celebrate what it is we mutually love about our fandoms, and make this a community in which creativity and celebration and positivity is resplendent. It’s because of people like you - ALL of you - that you build this incredible environment.

I’m in the middle of a phase where I think I’m going to be making rapid advances in my artwork soon. Maybe if there’s something really cool I’ll share it with ya’ll! There’s a 50% chance I might be getting a new art tablet soon, which will unfetter all the struggles I’ve had with digital art preventing me from improving there. And there’s so many ideas I have! Guys, there’s so many ideas! So much art to put down and explore and hgghghghhhh! I’m excited.

Of course this is all on top of my other hobbies. I love being a jack of all trades and master of none. Every day’s something new to explore. I’m a conlanger and I make my own languages. I’m a creative writer and I’m planning on charging deep into a single original novel that I hope I can publish. I’m a chronic worldbuilder who loves thinking about everything from the geographic history of the world to the culture’s technology to what the cities look like to the individual culture’s elements - be it gestures, taboo language, courting rituals, what have you! I’m a music composer and I even got a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition; I’ve learned how to play over a dozen instruments; I’m itching to make covers and suites of material I love. I used to make gifs and I still miss it - maybe I’ll get back into the swing of it sometime? I made one AMV and maybe I’ll make another - I’ve always loved video editing (I did Lego stop motion stuff in the junior high, after all). And of course I want to keep writing fandom meta for all the stories that have touched my heart, be it Fullmetal Alchemist or How to Train Your Dragon or Voltron: Legendary Defender or Mass Effect or anything else. I’m hoping that I’ll get some good bursts of activity on cosplay, too! I need to work on my sewing - 2019 shall be the perfect year for it, don’t you think?

Life’s so exciting and rich and beautiful. There’s so much creativity to be had. So much to do. So much to explore.

And who gives a flipping rat’s fart if I’m not The Best(TM) of the universe? XD That’s not the true reason to create ANYTHING!

I’ve got a fuckton of weaknesses in my artistic pursuits and that doesn’t make me an ounce less awesome. Having weaknesses makes my artistic life BETTER. I honestly believe it; they make me happy. I’m excited that I have weaknesses in my visual arts abilities because it means I’m going through this period of growth. Where would be my fun if I were perfect already? I’m having a blast not because my art is perfect, but because it’s IMPERFECT. I both like what I can do already and I know ALL the areas where it needs improving - allowing me new areas to dive further and reach new goals. It’s giving me life goals, trajectory, and celebrations every time I draw something new and better than what I made last month.

A childish, petty, and honestly rather uncreative insult isn’t going to make me blink. I know how amazing I am. I’m a powerhouse, powerfully creative, Renaissance man level talented bonfire who can do everything from advanced level linguistic scientific study to composing contemporary classical art music. I know what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. I’ve got great weaknesses, and that’s totally chill!

I’m sorry, friend, but the only thing your message does is show how much of a naive child you are. You ignorantly think that a laughably uninteresting, child-level insult is going to affect an adult who is confident and grown in themselves. You don’t know your audience. Even if you were right that my art is shit - which it’s not - it doesn’t matter to me. My identity is more than one cute doodle with Hiccup and Toothless. It’s a shame because I’m sure you have so much positive beauty you could contribute to this world. Why waste your time with this, when it literally could not be more of a waste of your time?

What positive creativity have you done?

I encourage us all to contribute to the beauty of our community. Let’s take this moment to be an inspiration point. Let’s create together. Let’s give people reasons to smile. Let’s share posts we love and talk about why we love them. Let’s draw and write and sing and dance our way through what we love. Let’s give positive feedback on the fanfiction people wrote for us for free. Let’s send compliments to one another - that’s a legitimate form of creation and it’s one of the best. Let’s let our personalities sparkle. Kindness is so awesome. You all are so awesome.

I’m so thankful to live in a community like this, where every day I’m bombarded with incredible magic - the magic you all have created.

As for my Hiccup drawing, the HTTYD book community has a cool event going on celebrating the Twelve Days of Doomsday. I encourage you all to participate and enjoy Cressida Cowell’s works with me!!!

Who knows? Maybe I’ll have time for a few more Hiccup doodles in the next dozen days!

#blabbing Haddock #long post #ask #ask me #awesome anonymous friend #troll #httyd fandom #let's make hate mail backfire into inspiration!!!!!#we rock fandom #we rock #you all rock #and you're all beautiful!#I love your creativity and it's such a blessing to be here #Anonymous

46 notes · View notes

paladin-andric · 6 years

Text

Blackheart, Chapter 20: Discontent

A signature here, a signature there, a compliment, a threat and an insult…

The prince folded the paper before stamping it with the royal seal, tossing it to the side of the desk. He leaned back and sighed, rubbing at his temples.

The young man had been doing this for weeks. Normally burning with drive and unusually active, the normally fair, clean-shaven prince looked overworked and disheveled, with rings under his eyes and growing stubble all over his face.

He was currently in a small office, next to his room. The office space was as richly decorated as one might expect from the castle that housed the entire royal family of Geralthin. Tapestries and expensive baubles were placed around the room, though it wasn’t quite as extravagant as the rest of the castle.

This was an office, after all. No one but the family and perhaps a few stewards ever came in here.

Sunlight streamed in through the window as a light breeze flowed in, giving the prince a brief respite from the all the hardship. His arms dangled to his sides as he closed his eyes and felt the breeze on his neck, cooling him slightly.

“Your highness?”

The prince opened his eyes, locking onto the figure at the door.

One of the new hires stood there. A young man with few defining qualities that the prince never bothered to find out the name of.

“What?”

“Err...perhaps I could take over for-”

“No.”

His answer was blunt, and his tone was authoritative. The servant seemed to fold at it immediately.

“O-okay, your highness.”

The man vanished, off to whatever it was he did. The prince didn’t care. He had more important things to worry about.

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair, face in his hands.

It was getting to be too much. At this point, how could he keep up?

He’d been writing letters and trying to push forward decrees wherever he could. He’d ridden to and from so many noblemens’ houses. He’d been up night and day working to put together an army, but no one seemed willing.

He’d gone as far as to track down the poorest, least prestigious noble houses in the kingdom, yet even they wouldn’t lend their men to him for a shot at relevancy in the court.

Not single person seemed to give a damn.

That was enough. He decided to see his friend about this. He rose out of the chair and left the room, making his way down the hall.

The wild wealth that pulsed through the heart of the kingdom was lost on the prince at the moment. He was halfway in his own mind, stewing over it all.

The Edict...the executions...the city...the demons…

What the hell was going on?!

He stomped down the gilded halls, head hung low and hands folded behind his back.

Why was it like this? The castle should be utterly swarming with activity in the midst of this madness! An entire city, and thousands of lives were just lost! Add the population of the city onto the losses of the missing armies sent there and...

He grimaced. Something had to be done. Why was nothing being done?

Sure, they’d sent the knight, but really? That’s all?

Sure, the current state of the court was currently quite chaotic, but it for all the wrong reasons.

Various members of the court had resigned or been fired following the flurry of criticism and resistance after the king’s exiling of non-humans. What parts of the castle still operated normally were being run by skeleton crews, vastly undermanned and many of them unqualified.

Everyone argued over what issues were more important. They worked over how the loss of an entire city and its people affected supplies and resources, but ignored the issue of the city itself, instead proposing new trade routes to make up for the losses! The king said everything was under control and offered no propositions or entertained any, and everyone was too afraid to speak up about it.

The council was in complete gridlock.

Normally, the great dragon of Geralthin would be called in to mediate such standstills and disputes, but the king refused utterly. He would not budge an inch on that.

Hell, he had tried to throw her out with the rest of the dragons when he put the edict into effect.

That was the ONE thing even his most loyal soldiers refused. Even as he threatened them, not a single man dared to step foot in the Lady Protector’s wing of the castle.

She was above ordinary dragons. She was the savior of the nation, the champion of the kingdom. The reason this castle even existed. Humanity’s savior. To the people, she was a symbol of Geralthin, the spirit of the kingdom itself.

Not even the king could change that.

Eventually, he was forced to back down after facing a potential coup...but, spiteful towards the disobedience, they had entered a sort of...war without battle, with the dragon.

He banned entering her wing of the castle under any circumstances, and whenever she sent for him or a servant, he ignored her, leaving her in an isolated state.

It had gotten bad enough that she had gotten frustrated once and left her wing of the castle, flying outside and demanding one of the guards tell the king she wished to speak with him.

It had happened several times, and each time he had the same response: Do nothing. Hole up inside and pretend she didn’t exist.

As far as he was concerned, she should be in Palethorn with the rest of the beasts.

The man was shaking by the time he reached the archives. He suddenly realized how he looked and composed himself, taking a deep breath and straightening his back. He reached forward and opened the door, pulling slowly.

Stepping into the archive room, the prince found it just as it had always been. All across the walls, towering bookshelves covered every corner of the room. On these shelves reaching up to the ceiling far above, countless books lined the room, filled with priceless knowledge and the lengthy and rich history of mankind.

Chandeliers and various candles lined the walls and ceiling, making up for the lack of windows. The lighting was bright enough to see clearly, but was fairly dim in some areas.

Though the archives stretched far off to the sides, that wasn’t why he was here. He had come for one reason.

That reason sat before him.

The aging, bearded man was sitting in front of a desk facing the entrance, with several books and papers sprawled across it.

His outfit was quite regal, even though he wasn’t of noble blood himself. He had long, flowing robes over expensive clothes, embroidered with decorative patterns resembling flowing winds.

He paused in the midst of his writing, looking up at the door and smiling at the figure in the doorway.

“Ah, Prince William! What do I owe the pleasure?”

He was the one man here the prince could even stand anymore. The only one honest enough to speak his mind.

“I can’t take it anymore,” William spoke quietly, “I’m...at my limit.”

The bearded man sighed, putting down his quill and getting up from his seat. “I...feel much the same.”

William grimaced. “Baldwin...how can you stand it? This is insanity! Everyone’s gone! The halls are empty! Everyone left acts like a hollow shell! The entire castle has fallen silent! This is like...some horrible perversion of what I used to call home!”

“It’s been rough,” the scribe admitted, “I’ve always valued a bit of peace and quiet, but...it does feel strange.” “It’s like I woke up one day and everyone else had vanished,” the prince recalled. He shook his head. “Everyone’s acting so off, too...everyone left, that is. No one says anything. No one does anything. Have you been to the game room? I haven’t seen a soul there since the start of this.”

“No time for merriment,” Baldwin answered bitterly, “Everyone still here has to pick up the slack.”

“I-I mean, just look at the cooks, the cleaners! Everyone’s miserable, no one DOES anything! They do their job than run off to their rooms for the rest of the day.”

The scribe crossed his arms. “I’ve been here too, your highness. Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”

William narrowed his eyes. “I think it’s time we...spoke with her.”

The scribe’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “What?!”

A brief silence followed, leading Baldwin to glare at the prince.

“You’re being serious.”

William nodded.

“I’d rather not get tried for treason.”

“What’s he gonna do, send men to apprehend us? Her wing’s almost sacred ground at this point. No one dared go, even when he threatened to try them for treason. We’re safe.”

“I don’t know...what’s the point? What are even going to do, anyway?”

William glared at his lifelong friend. “Fine. If you want to stay here and wallow, be my guest. I’ll go myself.”

He spun around and marched out the archives, not pausing even as the scribe called his name.

William returned to his chambers and suited up. He replaced his leisure clothes with underarmor wear, padding, and his suit of platemail. The full set of armor was accompanied with a royal tabard, elegantly designed and easily designating him as a member of the royal family. His helmet was open-faced, allowing others to identify him. His helmet was fitted with a modest, but still impressive silver circlet. Not quite a crown, but he wasn’t quite a king yet, either.

This ensemble come together to show that not only was he equipped with expertly forged armor befitting the finest knight, but was also royalty.

He finished by fastening his sword to his hip, and finally left for the abandoned castle wing.

Marching down the halls looking ready for war would attract much attention, but that was exactly the point. He was done being quiet. He was done being subtle.

This was an act of rebellion, in a way, and he wanted everyone to know that.

What would his father do, disinherit him? He was his only child, and putting a succession crises into motion in his old age was a disaster waiting to happen.

If his father named some random nobody his heir, gathering support to overthrow them would be a cinch, especially if he promised to annul the edict.

He was the rightful heir to the throne, after all.

Passing the archive, William was surprised when he turned the corner, only to see Baldwin standing there, waiting.

The man’s eyes widened at the prince’s appearance.

“Good Lord, William! Why are you armed for battle?!”

“To make a statement,” the prince returned, “I’m meeting the Lady Protector, and no one can stop me. And if they try…”

He gripped the hilt of his sword threateningly.

“This is a bad idea, your highness. I’m willing to go with you, but arming yourself is taking things too far, in my opinion…”

“Speak to father about taking things too far,” William said bluntly. He walked past the scribe, the man quickly hurrying to follow him.

“I still don’t know what your plan is,” Baldwin spoke in a near-whisper, “What are we doing?”

“Paying the Lady a visit. That’s all.”

“That’s all? You suited up for battle to chat?”

“I want everyone to see I make my own rules,” William answered, still speaking harshly, “Let all see the king cannot cage me like an animal. Maybe a few will find their spines.”

“I suppose…”

The pair walked down a flight of stairs, long, winding and extravagant. They came to the beautifully decorated hallways of the entrance to the castle. Guards standing duty stared with wide eyes and shocked expressions as the prince, armored and armed, walked past them...and into the off-limits wing of the castle.

No one objected.

“Ooh...we’re in it now,” Baldwin said lowly, “They all know.”

“That’s the point.”

The Lady Protector’s wing of the castle was massive in size...literally. Everything, from the halls to the doors, were several times larger than the rest of the castle.

It was so someone of her great size could move through such halls.

The hall itself was quite nice. Not as extravagant as the rest of the castle, but still dignified enough to be a wonderful vista. There was a sort of...restrained beauty about it. There weren’t many decorations, but the lovely carpets, clean stones and fetching baubles atop end tables strewn throughout the hall gave the impression the decorator didn’t need overwhelming expenses to give off an air of regal elegance.

Furthermore, the massive windows made for a gorgeous view of the rolling greens outside.

The pleasing scenery brought a smile to the prince’s face...though at the same time, he felt a bit saddened.

To think such a wonderful part of the castle was being neglected, and its great inhabitant shunned over a petty feud...more deserved to see it, and the Lady herself...

It took longer than expected, but the two men finally reached the door at the end of the hallway. Pausing for a moment, the prince pushed hard, the massive wooden doors parting after a bit of effort.

They swung open to reveal a truly massive room...with a massive inhabitant.

The black dragon, lying down, suddenly sprang to life, head shooting up as she heard the door open. She turned, the massive beast’s sharp eyes locking onto the pair standing at the entrance to her room.

The great dragon’s eyes widened at the sight. She opened her maw, and spoke.

“Master William?! Sir Baldwin?!”

The massive dragon stood up, towering over the men several stories. Her mere presence changed the emotions of the two. William, for his part, felt elated. Baldwin, on the other hand, seemed fearful, hiding behind the prince and offering no greeting.

“Lady Gira! How are you?”

“Oh my goodness!” the dragon spoke, “Guests?! I cannot believe it! And such distinguished ones, as well! You are looking quite resplendent!”

“Only the best for the Lady,” William said with a grin.

The dragon smiled back. “Oh, Prince William, you do not need to put so much hard work into speaking with me! Do not worry about such things in the future! You could have come wrapped in bedsheets and I would think nothing of it! I respect you both so very much, you know that!”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind,” the prince answered, “But how about you? It must be so dreadfully boring around here.”

“It has been ages since a soul stepped into my chambers! I apologize for my shock, but I have not been expecting any company!”

“Sorry for the surprise.”

“No, no! It is a wonderful surprise, indeed...I have grown so…”

The was a lengthy silence. The dragon appeared hurt, glancing away from the two humans.

“...It has been so lonely here, you know? Since the start of...this oddness.”

William scowled. “Oddness? Try madness! Lady Gira, I am here to discuss this with you. I...think something needs to be done.”

“I have been trying,” Gira spoke bitterly, “But...Master Salign has refused to even entertain my presence!”

“He loathes you. He’s so angry no one would kick you out that he’s pretending you don’t exist.” William gritted his teeth. “He’s a stuck up moron.”

Gira stared at the prince. Her eyes were just so...deep. It felt like William could get lost in them, piecing together emotions and memories if he looked hard enough.

“My prince...I have become increasingly distressed by the treatment I am receiving. Why is it you are here? I thought his majesty forbid you from coming to speak with me.”

“He did. I came anyway.”

“What?! Truly?!”

“Something must be done,” he stated simply.

“I-I mean, of course, but...within the legal framework of the system, of course!”

William laughed. “Really? You honestly believe that?”

Gira smiled. “Of course! I am Lady Protector, after all. It is my duty to obey Master Salign in all things. I only wish he would allow my council…”

The prince looked at the dragon in disbelief. “You...you aren’t actually okay with going along with what he’s done, are you?”

Gira frowned. “No...no, certainly not. I wished to make a convincing case for why he should undo his previous decision.” “He won’t listen. You’re bandying empty words if you try to convince him.”

“But...there must be something we can do.”

The price nodded. “Yeah, there is.”

The dragon stared intently. “Indeed? What is it?”

His face was emotionless as he looked up at the great beast of legend. “We can overthrow him.”

Gira reeled back in shock. “M-master William?!” “What the hell are you doing?!” Baldwin hissed in William’s ear, “Don’t say such things to Gira!”

“I told you: It’s time we do something about it.” The prince was firm and unmoving despite the response.

“This...this is high treason!” Gira cried, looking mortified.

William narrowed his eyes at the dragon. “And trying to ban you from the kingdom is not?”

“I...he has the final say!” the dragon reasoned.

“That isn’t right. Haven’t you heard? You’re supposed to be crammed in that hellhole with the rest of them. Do you honestly think he should be allowed to push around the savior of the kingdom like that?”

“I am no savior, but...no.”

“Than we should stop him. He won’t listen to reason, so we have to MAKE him listen.”

“No, no!” Gira appeared distraught, “I cannot, I WILL not! I shall never betray Geralthin, never betray my king!”

“Why do you care so much about obeying father? He wants you gone...or dead, if you refuse.”

The dragon looked away, eyes full of pain.

“I...made a promise. That I would always serve the sovereign, to my dying breath. I made that promise, to the greatest man that ever lived, to the one who founded the kingdom. I promised...and I will never betray that trust.”

She looked back at William, newfound passion in her eyes. “I will NEVER betray Master Salign. I shall serve him to my dying breath, this I swear! He is the ruler of Geralthin, and I serve Geralthin with all my being! Nothing in the world could ever change that! I shall not join your plot! There is another way!”

“There really isn’t,” William said with a shake of his head.

“There is ALWAYS another way!”

The prince sighed. “You really won’t do it...alright. Fine, I suppose this is the end of it, than. I just don’t understand how you could obey a tyrant, someone hurting innocent people, someone who hates you and wants you dead.”

“It is not like that!” Gira insisted, “Loyalty is the core of my being! One king I disagree with will never change the fact that I serve Geralthin always!”

“He has BETRAYED Geralthin!” William roared. Baldwin, and even Gira reeled from his outburst.

“He uses the throne to pursue his own agenda! He stands against his own people, hurting and terrorizing the very people he swore to protect when he took the throne! He’s driving the kingdom into the ground, destroying it and everything that ever made it worth a damn! He destroyed the church, butchered saints and war heroes for daring to refuse his mad demands! You talk of treason, Gira?! Well, he has committed treason against Geralthin itself! Its people, its spirit! All of the nation has been wronged by these criminal actions, and to save it, he must be taken away from the reigns of power! This is for the good of the kingdom, and its people!”

Gira stared with her maw open at the raving prince, seeming unable to believe this was real.

After a moment, she gathered herself and spoke. “S-sir, Master William...I...I do not believe you have to do this. We can talk with him, we can...he is just...difficult. The king, he-”

“To hell with the king. When the old man kicks the bucket I’m ripping up that stupid edict. Kick my best friend out of the kingdom cause he ain’t human, will ya? His ghost can’t undo my right to rule. And if he haunts me I’ll have him exorcised, and his ghost can cry about it.”

William could swear Gira looked almost ready to cry. “Master William...you are such a kind, wonderful young man...how could you say such horrible things, against your father, of all people?”

“I told him this was a bad idea. I told him he was wrong. I told him he hurt my greatest friend and I wouldn’t forgive that. You know what happened after that?”

Gira shook her head. The prince continued.

“He has loathing in his eyes, every time he looks at me. He avoids me whenever possible. He send servants and letters rather than speaking to me in person. Our relationship is gone. He treats me like someone he hates, but can’t get rid of. He may be my father, but there is no familial love there any longer.”

Gira looked horrified at the prince’s words. “Master William...it cannot be…”

“I think...I think there’s something wrong with him,” William admitted, “I think...something’s come loose in his head.”

The dragon frowned. “You think he...is suffering from something?”

“Madness.” Prince William looked at Gira with a serious expression. “He’s going to destroy Geralthin if we don’t stop him, Lady Gira.”

The black dragon was silent for some time. She stared down at the prince, her expression unreadable.

“Is that...what you truly believe?”

He shrugged. “He refuses to explain why he’s doing this. It makes no sense, I’ve gone over every motive I could think of, and it makes NO sense, no matter which way you think of it. It’s not pragmatic, this has damaged our production, trade and agriculture severely. It can’t just be bigotry. He had fifty years to do this. No, I think something in him just...snapped.”

Gira frowned. “Mental health...would my healing powers have any effect?”

“He’d never let you, so even if it did, we’d never find out.”

The dragon turned away.

The prince waited for a long amount of time. She said nothing, offered nothing.

“Gira?”

“...I am sorry, Master William. I cannot. If you want my help, convince him to come to me for healing. Perhaps, if your theory is correct...I could help him.”

William hung his head in defeat. He had been betting on her support. What would he do now? To think she was so loyal, despite being treated like dirt…

“...very well. I shall take my leave. I pray you good fortune, Lady Gira. Have a good day.”

“Master William, Sir Baldwin...please be safe. You are dear friends to me, I hope you know this. Please have a splendid day.”

The pair left room, walking back through the massive doors back into the hallway. William leaned against a window and stared out into the sunny fields, dejected.

Baldwin forced the doors shut, turning and looking at the prince. His expression was something in between anger and shock.

“I cannot believe you tried to convince Lady Gira to join a coup.”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

“Not illegally seize power?”

William sighed. “I really don’t need this right now, Baldwin.”

“What am I supposed to say?! You asked the black dragon to betray the king! I mean...you must understand how insane that sounds, just by hearing me say it!”

The prince looked out into the fields. Out there, it was bright, happy and hopeful. But in here? Dread, terror and misery reigned.

“...alright. I guess that’s it, than. Hope is dead.”

“What?”

The prince turned and began walking back to the main section of the castle. “If we lack the stomach to act, than all that’s left is inaction. Nothing will change and this mockery of justice will continue.”

“I meant-”

“Don’t wanna hear it,” the prince interrupted, “I really don’t care.”

He left the scribe there, staring at William walking off, unsure of what to say.

“Have fun writing your worthless notes. I’m sure it’ll help when the entire population of Palethorn turns up dead.”

“What else am I supposed to do?!” Baldwin shouted. The prince turned his head back at the man as he kept walking.

“You’re supposed to do what’s right.” He turned his attention back in front of him and shook his head.

“I guess you just don’t have the stomach for it. It’s fine, I’ll go back to writing the houses.”

He mulled over the list of names. All those replies, and none accepting. Maybe if he just kept going...

“I’ll find someone with the guts to do something worth a damn, eventually…”

Beginning | Previous | Next

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadhorner, @laurenwastestimewriting, @elaynab-writing, @the-ichor-of-ruination, @disheveledcorvid, @reya-writes

9 notes · View notes

atamascolily · 6 years

Text

more Crystal Star quotes from Vonda N. McIntyre

The third [ship] was Alderaan, Leia’s pride and joy. Alderaan was a sleek little ship with hyperdrive capabilities. Luke had chided her for spending the time to learn to fly it that she could have used to study the ways of the Jedi. But the truth was, it was much easier and faster to learn to fly Alderaan than to learn to be a Jedi Knight. And a great deal more fun. Maybe that was why she loved the little starcraft so much. Her responsibility to the Republic kept her from having much fun.

The same was true of everyone she knew. Luke worked himself to exhaustion. Leia thought that he deliberately worked himself beyond exhaustion, either to test himself or to take himself to another level of achievement. But he scared her, sometimes. She wished they had grown up together; she wished she had known her brother as a child, so she could understand him better.

Han did not deliberately push himself beyond his endurance. He had passed plenty of tests in his life; he never needed to give himself more. But he did press himself to his limits without meaning to. Often Leia would come home after a diplomatic reception or a long meeting with her advisers to find Han facedown at his desk, snoring. Once he fell asleep in his bath. Leia was convinced that if she had come in five minutes later, he would have drowned.

That was why he and Luke had gone on a quest together. They were both burning out. They needed time off.

She doubted Luke would find any other Jedi Knights on his quest, but she hoped he would find some rest. And she hoped Han would let loose, like in the old days.

Errr... exactly like the old days? I don’t think you want that, Leia. But I love Leia having her own ship, though I don’t buy Luke chiding Leia for it. I mean, he’s a fighter pilot, he understands or ought to.

Leia laid one hand on the silver flank of her ship. No distinguishing mark marred its limpid finish, which looked like puddled mercury. It was registered to a person who did not exist, a second identity Leia had established so that someday, sometime, somehow, she would be able to take a few days off and fly away to a pleasant place without being recognized. Its ship’s signature did not even list its name, only its number, because the name of Alderaan gave too great a clue to the true identity of the ship’s owner. Almost all the citizens of Alderaan had perished in the attack of the Death Star. Only a few had survived. Princess Leia Organa had been one of them.

I woulda called it something else, but okay...

She opened her hand. In her wide palm lay a deck of cards. A design of complex knots decorated the back. The enhanced human moved her hand, and the deck flipped over. Chance & Hazard, illuminated with gold and emerald paint, topped the stack.

I love sabacc, even if no one in the EU evr figured out consistent rules.

The letter of resources was a worthless piece of trash in Han’s pocket. His immediate impulse was to rip it to shreds and throw it into the nearest crater. But that would be stupid as well as impossible. It was printed not on paper, but on a practically indestructible sheet of archival plastic. The edges would cut his skin before they would tear.

SOLID. Cash flow is a major problem in Han’s subplot, #respect.

Ghostlings had always mesmerized him. They looked like humans, but were not. Their ethereal beauty tantalized humans and they in their turn were fascinated by human beings. They were as seductive as incubi and succubi, but as fragile as spiderwebs. For a human and a ghostling to enter into a physical relationship meant certain death for a ghostling. But there’s no harm in looking, Han said to himself.

Cool world-building detail to borrow.

Han displayed the rainbow edges of a few bills of New Republic currency. He was glad, for old times’ sake, for the sake of his smuggling days, that the Senate had failed to pass a law abandoning physical currency. Smuggling would have been a whole lot harder without hard-to-trace cash money. Of course, that was why the Senate wanted to abandon it.

LOL.

“Just thinking about the Jedi Academy. I hate to leave my students, even for a few days.....”

...because they’ll set everything on fire, right, Luke? Right?

But if I do find other trained Jedi, it’ll make a big difference. To the Academy. To the New Republic …” “I think we’re getting along pretty well already,” Han said, irked. He had spent years maintaining the peace with ordinary people. In his opinion, Jedi Knights could cause more trouble than they were worth. “And what if these are all using the dark side?”

Luke: Yeah, Jedi are awesome!

Han: *recalls being personally tortured by Vader, plus all the drama involving various Force-sensitives over the years* Whatever you say, kid.

But she and Jacen had lots of hold-fathers and hold-mothers. Anakin had lots of hold-fathers and hold-mothers.

YEAH extended families. But I prefer “Uncle” and “Aunt” myself.

"[Winter's] services are no longer necessary,” Hold-father Hethrir said. “Children, children! You are important! Your abilities are precious! You cannot be raised, you cannot be taught, by a servant.” “She isn’t! She’s our friend!” “She has her own life to live, she cannot raise you properly with no one to pay for you.” “We wouldn’t eat much,” Jacen said hopefully.

LOL. Though FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE, WINTER IS NOT A SERVANT. Also, she is a badass.

Tigris tried to take Anakin from Jaina. She stepped back. Jacen jumped in front of her to help protect their little brother. Together, they created the barrier Uncle Luke had taught them to make. No one would be able to get through it. They would not let Tigris take Anakin! The barrier shimmered around Jaina. And then it fell apart like a sand castle in the tide.

It’s never explained how the villain can do this, but yay for family solidarity and Uncle Luke’s teachings even if it doesn’t work.

She thought of a soft camp mattress under her, just dried out, nice and warm. And her smart camping blanket. It knew when she was cold and it knew to warm up. It knew to snuggle down around her to keep out the wind. It liked to get wet sometimes—it liked to swim. Then it lay flat on the ground, because it did not have any feet. And it wriggled and shook until its fur was dry and warm and Jaina could wrap it around her shoulders and go to sleep. When she was little she even liked to sleep with it at home.

Awww.....

The blade of Lord Hethrir’s lightsaber could only be activated by the use of the Force. Hethrir would not accept anyone into his inner circles who could not complete the circuit and generate the blade.

This is.... not as useful as you think it is, Hethrir.

“Why, I can virtually feel my intelligence circuits exploding beneath the assault.” “Your intelligence sounds normal to me,” Luke said.

SASSMASTER.

Hethrir had built his private receiving chamber from the finest wood of all the old Empire. Body-wood, they called it. It resembled the flesh of the people who had inhabited the forest, before the Emperor claimed the world. To his most favored officers he had dispensed the right to exploit certain resources. Hethrir’s reward had been the license to export body-wood. Lord Hethrir had begun his fortune from the license. But he used the wood profligately for himself as well. The walls and floor and ceiling of the chamber glowed with it.

The surface of the polished body-wood was the palest pink. Scarlet streaks shot through it, gleaming with light, like cut and polished precious stones. Tigris always thought the wood looked alive, and indeed it was said that the body-wood trees sustained a certain intelligence. It was said that they cried, when Hethrir cut them down. Tigris almost believed that they cried. He knew their wood bled. He had the task, the honor, of cleaning up the scarlet rivulets before they pooled on the floor and stained it.

CREEPY.

She imagined the molecules of air all around her. She imagined one molecule. She imagined it moving, faster and faster. She felt the molecule respond.

Hethrir’s power did not react. She knew it was around her, she could feel its attention off in the distance. But it did not notice the tiny motion she created. She added another molecule, another, doubling and redoubling the number she affected. Soon a small handful of air vibrated with her energy. Its warmth took the chill from her cell.

The swirl of air glowed red, then yellow, spreading light into the corners of Jaina’s cell.

Size matters not, y’all.

"Of course thou didst comprehend the connection between the ego-flux and the universal backlight, but I wonder if thou didst make the conceptual leap to the synergy of intellectual realization and quantum crystallization?”

“I am embarrassed to admit that I had not,” Xaverri said, “though now that thou hast shown me the path, I can see that the interaction is completely inevitable.”

WARU, you complete bullshitter.

Jaina knew Jacen had asked the myrmins to climb up the stage. One of the Proctors leaped to his feet with a shout. He thought he just had sand in his pants. Then the sand bit him. The other Proctors started jumping up and yelling and scratching. And stamping, stamping on the myrmins. “Oh!” Jaina whispered. “Oh—poor myrmins, thank you, myrmins.” Some of them were running away now, disappearing into cracks and hiding. But some of them were being killed.

“We’re sorry, myrmins,” she said, sincerely, the way Chewbacca spoke to insects he sometimes killed, even if he never meant to, when he harvested forest honey. She risked another glance across the hall at Jacen. Stricken, he started to cry. He cried when Chewbacca apologized to the forest insects, too. But this time it was his fault that the myrmins were being hurt. Suddenly the myrmins all disappeared. Jaina felt the flare of Jacen’s abilities, whisking the little creatures out of danger.

Aww...

Maybe I could tame her,” Jacen said. “And we could ride her away!” Jaina had no idea how Jacen knew it was a Mistress Dragon and not a Mister Dragon. But he was always right about this sort of stuff....

No, wait!” Jaina snatched it back. “Don’t throw it.” She opened up the lens and caught the light and flashed it on the ground in front of the dragon. “Isn’t she pretty?” Jacen said. When the dragon opened her eyes, she saw the concentrated point of light from Jaina’s lens. She snorted and lowered her head. Jaina gave the multitool to Jacen. He was better with critters than she was. He wiggled the light near the dragon’s front paws. The dragon put her paw on the place where the light was. Then she had to put her other paw on top of her first paw, and still the light was not covered. She pulled her first paw out from under her second paw and lost her balance. She rolled completely over, snortling and wriggling. Then she jumped up and looked around for the light. Jacen moved it around for her to chase. She jumped forward after it, shaking the ground when she landed, raising great sprays of sand. Jaina laughed with delight. By now all the other children had gathered behind Jaina and Jacen to watch the dragon play. Jacen danced the light before the dragon, who gallumphed after it, pouncing to try to catch it. Jacen skipped the light up the cliffside that projected beyond the fence. The dragon scratched the rock with her front feet, ripping loose bits of stone. She roared joyously. She lashed her tail.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Solo twins.

Anakin plopped himself down on the seat beside Tigris. “Bad mans, Tigis,” he said solemnly.

Baby Anakin is always right about this stuff.

#star wars #star wars legends #the crystal star #vonda n. mcintyre #fanfic musings #eu fuckery

3 notes · View notes