#the simple stuff is really iconic but when he tries more complex designs it easily falls into looking goofy

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

i think some of takeuchis art is really good and some of it is bad. is that an acceptable stance or is having a non-dichotomous opinion considered passé/wishy washy

[jaybug-jabbers]

Top 3 Generations: Gen 1 - Gen 5 - Gen 7

Top 3 Human Characters in Pokemon: N - Guzma - Cheren

(Warning: this post contains LARGE SPOILERS.)

Soooo. Back in 2010 (holy butts, seven years ago), gen 5 came out with Pokemon Black and White. I fell utterly in love with everything about the game. Without a doubt, I hadn’t enjoyed playing a pokemon game that much since Red and Blue. The number of new pokemon was insane (the most new pokemon introduced in any generation, even gen 1), and the designs for all these new pokemon were fucking fantastic. The UI was sleek as fuck and a sheer joy to use, the sound effects and music were truly lovely, the locations were so different and creative, and imparted a true sense of travel like the games before never did. They really felt like little ecosystems you were stepping into. The lack of old pokemon made it truly feel like an exciting new world, and everywhere you looked, there were awesome new things. We got our first female Pokemon Professor (about time!), who was really cool, and most exciting of all … we had AN ACTUAL honest-to-god decent plot and fleshed-out characters.

That was always a weak point in the pokemon games. Gen 1 gets away with not having fleshed out characters and a very simple plot because it was the first of its kind. It was still a novel concept. And the relatively simple plot was iconic– archtypal. It allowed you to imagine all kinds of things on your adventure, your childhood imagination filling in the gaps. But it’s a reasonable thing to expect future pokemon games to start introducing new, interesting plots. However, that … took a while. For the most part, Pokemon was too afraid to stray from their formula, and so they recycled the same basic plot until it became extremely tiring to hear the same thing over and over again. They stuck with a minimalistic plot with very little variation, and extremely shallow, 2-dimentional characters.

In my opinion, B/W had a far more complex and unique plot. The writing was actually solid (dialogue is usually another weakness in these games, tends to be pretty awful) and the story was truly compelling. It looked at the pokemon universe in a new way, asking questions the games never dared to ask before. And, holy cats, characters with some actual dimensions? You had multiple rivals for once, and they were actually interesting in their own rights. For the first time, I didn’t hate or feel intensely indifferent towards my rival and actually felt like they were people. That’s not to say they were perfect or intensely complex, but for once, they had some degree of interest and appeal to them.

You’ll see one of the characters I listed as my favorite was Cheren, one of your rivals/friends. I related to his nerdy, logical style much more than the scatterbrained Bianca, but I did feel a fondness for both of them. The character I listed as my top favorite, though, was N.

I was intrigued by this guy the moment the player character meets him and his quirky theme music plays. He was a truly fascinating mystery to me, and I looked forward to running into him again and again. Something about this character really caught my imagination on fire. (Heck, to such a degree I even ended up writing a fanfic. I hadn’t written fanfic for anything in years.) They continued to develop his character and I was enchanted– the scene in the carnival where he asks you to join him on the ferris wheel still stands out in my mind so clearly. It was a rush of fascination and fear and curiosity (I recall shouting at my character to not join him on the wheel, ahaha, ‘Are you crazy?!’ yet simultaneously wanting to join him). That’s another thing I forget to mention– he was a truly tough trainer to go up against, so it was a little intimidating, and I recall training hard, worried about the next unpredictable time I’d run into him.

The climax and resolution of the plot didn’t disappoint, either. I definitely think he’s the most interesting character in a main series Pokemon game, and I was happy as buttery butts that there was a sequel to Black and White. I know my intense love of Gen 5 places me in the minority. But I stand by my reasoning.

In my mind, Gen 6 was a step back in a lot of ways from Gen 5. The plot and the writing for the dialogue was total shit again, and I hated your irritating rivals, which I think were supposed to be patterned after the formula of Gen 5 but just fell flat. For a 3-D game, it sure had 2-dimensional characters. I know a lot of people praise gen 6 for its technological advancements, but to me, that’s one of the least important things. Gen 6 tried to recapture the feeling of travelling great distances and entering mini ecosystems, yet I found its city intensely frustrating to navigate (whereas I found Castelia City very intuitive and fun) and it just didn’t have as much charm. There were very few new pokemon introduced, and completing the National Dex with ALL current pokemon to that date was quite the daunting task. The best thing about X/Y’s plot, quite frankly, was its post-game story, done in chapters with the Looker character.

(Note: I never picked up ORAS, so unfortunately cannot give my perspective on that.)

Then came Gen 7. I’d say it’s probably my third favorite generation, at least at the moment. The technology admittedly is nice– damn those graphics are nice. (I realize at this point, the 3DS can barely even handle the graphics; for example they originally had planned on walking pokemon following you like in Heartgold Soulsilver and that’d be SO COOL but the game would not have been able to handle it without hardcore lag) And the character models have normal proportions, (unlike the rather extreme chibi-proportions of Gen 6), which I gotta say looks really nice. The movement is so smooth, and ride pokemon are incredibly enjoyable to use and free up the need for HM slaves/HM move slots, which I think most people agree is a smart modern change. The game is just beautiful to look at, no denyin’.

It’s also a bit of a fresh breath of air, though, when compared to some of the more formulaic gens. The tropical theme was novel, and the Alolan forms gave a fresh new look at some old pokemon. They actually were bold enough to depart from some of their precious formula and try new things, abandoning traditional gyms and experimenting with totem pokemon and ally pokemon. I fully embraced these changes. The writing and plot are also quite decent, as are the characters! And that’s a huge plus. The more organic style of the routes and various points of interest on the islands does sometimes make navigation a little difficult (hard to recall where stuff is), but it suits the theme of the game well. Shiny pokemon were made easier to hunt in this gen, and quite frankly, I’m OK with that. I know hardcore shiny hunters may not agree, but I never ran into a shiny before Gen 7 and had very little interest to hunt them at such crazy odds. In this gen I actually get to enjoy some shiny pokes, though. Was Sun/Moon too easy? Yeah. The difficulty curve was definitely pretty low. But that’s probably my biggest complaint about the games.

You’ll notice in my list above, I have Guzma as my second-favorite human character of all Pokemon games. And how! Incidentally, Team Skull are easily my favorite villian team of all the games. (Plasma would be second.) I legit find myself considering getting a lil Team Skull necklace. Anyway, Guzma is frickin’ great. It’s not JUST because Bug type is my favorite type and he’s a bug boy. Although that’s a pretty nice bonus. <3 I also loved Gladion a lot! I actually liked him a lot more than his sister.

Anyway, this, err, this post has gone on for plenty long enough already tonight, so I’ll wrap things up for now.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Feb 24, 2017.

[louienardini-blog]

Modern Stop Motion (Part 2): “Sledgehammer” and “The Wrong Trousers”

Most of the previous works were mainly designed for TV and film. But by the time of the late century, stop motion was big enough to branch out into other mediums like music videos. This is a bigger occurrence today with examples like Fleet Foxes’ “Mykonos” (in 2009), but one of the earlier and best examples of a music video incorporating stop motion was with Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” (1986) directed by Stephen R. Johnson. Which is claimed as MTV’s most played music video of all time.

It was created by putting Peter in a layer of glass for a week, and taking shots frame by frame. And then combining these, to create the illusion that he’s singing, by cleverly syncing the mouth movements with the original recording of the song. Even though this was time-consuming, the amount of effort put in is clearly shown. From how much stuff is happening, it would take a few watches to consume everything that is happening in the video. This effect on Peter Gabriel is called pixilation, and it’s the same effect that “The Enchanted Drawing” used, by using individual frames of people to create their movement. Other techniques that this video used is found objects, like the furniture freak out at 4:25. Found object stop motion is where you take any object or random bits of junk and move them around using the technique of stop motion. This would have been influenced by “The Automatic Moving Company” (in 1912) made by Émile Cohl, who moved furniture by moving it around a few inches at a time. And then do this frame by frame, to create the illusion that they are moving. This technique is fascinating because it’s impossible to do without the use of stop motion, so it being done makes for a weird, crazy and unrealistic effect. Which fits the “Sledgehammer” music video perfectly. This technique however is limited, because you can only move the objects around and not alter them in any way. Johnson probably realised and decided to incorporate more types of stop motion, that would allow him to be more creative.

For example, the use of Claymation at 2:54, which outside help from Nick Park (who would later go on to create “Wallace and Gromit”), and its use is more technical than that of “Gumby”. Since the models are better sculpted, there’s more movement, and it combines a bigger variety of colours. This “Sledgehammer” video was designed fans of pop music – since it has a lot of melodies, and it includes a lot of mainstream friendly synthesisers. Targeted at any age, with the purpose to entertain. What this video does revolutionary, is that it combines all the techniques of stop motion we know so far, and in improves on them to create probably the best work to come out of the style. Below is the music video found on Peter Gabriel’s YouTube channel. Where you can also find his song “Big Time” (from the same album as “Sledgehammer”) that also includes stop motion very interestingly through the use of Claymation. Especially when the mountain turns into a monster.

Following on from Nick Park, I mentioned that he was the creator of “Wallace & Gromit”. Some of his most influential films from these characters are: “A Grand Day Out” (1989), “The Wrong Trousers” (1993), and “A Close Shave” (1995). While the first one was a good step in the right direction for Claymation, I’d say that “The Wrong Trousers” is the most important in the series, and one of the most impressive work in the genre. The backgrounds are the most impressive, probably including hundreds of tiny props. Which adds to the impressiveness and technicality that went into making it. As well as a better immersion into the atmosphere that Nick tries to create. This is a big improvement to what “Gumby” tried to create, since their backgrounds are very simple. The models in “The Wrong Trousers” also look very detailed in comparison. The Gumby character is just a smooth chunk of green clay with simple facial features, and little carvings into the actual clay. However, with Wallace’s model, when he’s wearing his green sweater, the carvings are really technical. It’s also an improvement on “Sledgehammer”, since the Claymation portion is short – “The Wrong Trousers” is 30 minutes long, and the music video is 5 minutes at 46 seconds. 

Similar to “Gumby”, they created the illusion of movement by moving the clay models positions (in either their face our body). Since “Wallace & Gromit” is more advanced in terms of animation, this means it would have taken more frames and more sculpting then its predecessor. Showing the rapid increase that Claymation is now expected of today. An example of where an example of this shows perfectly in “The Wrong Trousers” is when Wallace is eating his toast. You see the top and bottom parts of his head move simultaneously to create the illusion that he’s chewing into his toast. As well as his mouth opening and closing to show that he’s talking. The animation on his mouth is so well done that you can tell what he’s saying easily by reading his lips. It also shows the lack of empty frames, since each shot is conveying a new movement. Showing that there’s not only more frames in Nick’s animation compared to “Gumby”, but each frame is very effective of trying to create a three-dimensional character. And this complexity of this work proves that stop motion has become more impressive over time, and would continue to do so. Below is the example of Wallace eating toast (it’s found towards the end).

“Wallace & Gromit” is mainly targeted towards children because of its colourful, iconic and simplistic characters (not in terms of craft, but in terms of design and silhouettes). The premise is also wacky and weird, which would help entertain this audience. But because of the technicality of the animation it can be enjoyed by anyone of any age.  

Sources of information:

https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/nzd8nb/the-8-most-incredible-stop-motion-animation-music-videos-from-the-past-decade

http://www.everythingzoomer.com/arts-entertainment/2018/02/13/peter-gabriel-sledgehammer/

[ruffsficstuffplace]

Of Rocks, Romantic Rivalries, and Rune Rangers (Part 7): Invitations and Trepidation

Pidge and Hunk spent the rest of the afternoon repairing the titans and making prototypes for defenses against sonic attacks like Mero’s singing.

Though modifying their gear and the giant constructs was as easy as changing values and drafting designs on a terminal and letting the magic of the runes do the rest, making up entirely new magitech far beyond the boundaries of what both the humans and the Fae had achieved was still no mean feat.

They called it for the day at six. The titans were fully repaired and recharging their power cores for the next fight, while a team of golems tried to recreate the exact frequency of Mero’s singing for testing whether or not the new upgrades would hold up in practice as they did in theory.

<Not looking forward to hearing that tomorrow...> Hunk muttered as they cleaned up the empty bottles, cartons, and boxes of snacks they’d left around their work space.

<Who would be?> Pidge asked as she vacuumed up the crumbs and stray bits, then polished the counters till they were gleaming once more. <At least we can test it by blasting the golems instead of one of us—her ‘song’ is still ringing in my head.>

<I’ve been meaning to ask you what it was like under her spell, actually,> Hunk said as he put his armload of trash onto a teleporter. <You know, if it’s not too traumatic to bring up.>

Pidge winced. <How do I describe it...> she said as she opened up the supply cabinet. <It’s like having an off-key, tone-deaf voice in your head screeching the most annoyingly catchy song imaginable, and the it’s saying the only to get it to stop is to do everything the lyrics tell you to, and yet it doesn’t:

<It just gets worse and worse, and you just keep on following the lyrics anyway.>

<What was she saying?> Hunk asked as he pressed a button, and the trash disappeared through a rip in reality.

Pidge shrugged. <She wasn’t singing words, exactly, it was like how the titans talk to us: ideas, suggestions, emotions,> she said as she put the vacuum and the cleaning supplies back in their proper places. <If I had to hazard a translation, part of it would definitely go ‘Like, obey me, doucheschnozzle!’>

Hunk laughed, but he stopped and looked at her in worry soon after. <Are you okay, Pidge?>

Pidge sighed as she closed the closet. <No. Not going to be for a long, long while.>

Hunk walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. <You want to talk about it?>

Pidge turned to him then shook her head. <No offense to you, Hunk, but I don’t want to weigh you down with all this heavy stuff right now, we’re both pretty brain-fried from all that protyping.>

Hunk frowned. <Alright, but promise me you’re not going to keep it all to yourself again?>

Pidge smiled and held up her hand. <I promise! Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson about keeping secrets from my friends.>

Hunk smiled. <Good. Thought we’re going to have to do that whole song and dance again back when you were still working for Jahilliyah…>

<That time of my life is over, Hunk,> Pidge said. <I’m a Rune Ranger now. One of the good guys.>

But as Hunk bid her goodbye, and left to go cook dinner, she had to wonder: was it really over…?

“… No, ma’am, I’m afraid, I can not guarantee you that Keith will be your son’s temporary boyfriend for the entirety of his birthday,” Allura said as she sat at her seat in the Core, in front of the terminal built into her part of the table.

“Ma’am, Keith is a living, breathing Avalonian with rights and feelings just like you or me: he’s not property to be rented out willy-nilly!” Her eyes widened. She chewed her lip for a moment, before she quietly sighed, and said, “That is a very generous sum indeed, ma’am, but I’m afraid there is just no price that can be paid for Keith or the time of any of us.

“We’re the Defenders of Avalon, not a companion service.

“Besides, what if Zarkon’s forces decide to use the opportunity to attack Keith, have your son caught in the collateral damage? Would risking his safety and that of his guests really be worth it?” Allura paused. “Really now? Well, yes, I have heard of Crossfire-Cam, but I never—no, ma’am, I will still have to—ma’am, I’m truly very sorry, but my decision remains unchanged:

“Keith nor any of the other Rangers cannot be contracted for their time and presence, for companionship or any other reason.”

There was a long pause. “Ma’am, those situations were our voluntarily offering ourselves to the cause or the organization involved, we weren’t paid to appear at those events; any sort of monetary value assigned to our presence and the profits from the publicity and the exposure is not indicative of any sort of transaction nor payment.”

Allura frowned. “Ma’am, for security and privacy reasons, no, I cannot give you Keith’s private comm-line… no, I will not pass the message on, either.” She bit back a sigh. “Good day, my fellow Avalonian,” she said, before she cut the line.

She groaned, let her head hit the table. <Oh, Eluna, what happened these past 1,000 years?>

Coran sighed as he worked on the paperwork for some of the approved damage claims. “Lots of things, apparently, quite a few of them negative! Honestly, I never thought I’d ever see the day when you’d save a person’s life, and they’d still sue you for the Sentinel accidentally stepping over their car.”

“Suppose we’ll just have to deal with it, as we always do...” Allura muttered as she lifted her head-up, and reluctantly turned her attention back to her terminal’s screen.

She was about to answer another damage claim—seriously, did all those businesses have a rotating, dedicated staff on-hand to insistently call whoever had wronged them in any way?--when she noticed a new message icon.

It was from Pidge, separated from the others and easily distinguished by the icon of a green chinchilla with a paper envelope in its mouth.

The right thing to do would have been to ignore it and keep on working, read it later when she and Coran had both called it a day with sorting out the inevitably messy aftermath of a Galra attack. It couldn’t have been a priority message, either, as if it were, it would have automatically opened.

But, like so many others before her, she couldn’t help but get curious and click the icon.

The message was simple: <Hey Allura, can I come over to your room and talk with you after dinner, just the two of us?>

The emotions Allura felt afterward was a complex mishmash, overlapping and crashing into each other: Surprise, Elation, Curiosity, Worry, Fear, Confusion, Dread, and finally, Panic.

Coran looked up from manually putting in the few details Pidge’s “paper golems” couldn’t deal with, noticed Allura’s distress, her ears pulled back in worry and beads of sweat already appearing on her forehead.

<Your highness!> he cried as he rushed over to her. <Are you alright?!>

Allura tried to say <I’m fine!> but all she managed was look at Coran with terrified eyes, then point at the message like it was a giant, vicious banana tiger that had appeared in a plantation deep within the walls of Fae settlement.

Coran looked at the screen, and read Pidge’s message. <Ah.>

<She sent this an hour ago!> Allura cried. <An hour!>

<Fret not, your highness!> Coran said. <I’m certain Pidge understands that we’ve been terribly busy here at the Core, and wouldn’t blame you for taking your time responding!>

<How am I supposed to? Do that. Reply to her!> Allura sputtered, feeling all of her years of training in social norms, diplomatic protocol, and grace and wit fly out the window, then die horrible, messy deaths on the street outside. <I mean, this could be anything! Does she just want a friendly chat between us? Is this something much more serious? Or is this her way of trying to make a move, get the two of us alone and somewhere private?

<Do I say yes? Do I say no…? What do I do?!>

<Well, first, I have to ask: do you wish to speak with her in private later?> Coran asked.

Allura groaned. <I do, but there’s still so much work to be done here!> she said, gesturing at the messages still flooding their comm-lines.

Coran beamed and put a hand on his chest. <Leave that to me! They’ll all still be persistently hounding us tomorrow, this is an opportunity that you might not have again! This could be your chance, Allura: make your move, tell her how you really feel, do what Shiro’s been trying and failing to all this time!>

Allura looked at the number of pending communication requests, then at Coran. <Are you sure you can handle this, Coran?> she asked.

Coran looked as grimly determined as a man about to dive deep into the thick of customer service could be. <For you, your highness? I will take on anything.>

Allura smiled. <Thank you, Coran, I am forever in your debt.>

Coran waved her off. <You just go get yourself and your quarters ready for your talk with Pidge! Starting with messaging her back and telling her yes, you will see her back at your room.>

Allura turned back to her terminal, started making a reply. <Right...>

Had the message been from any of the other Rangers—even Shiro—Allura would have made and sent a message back in a heartbeat, warm and friendly, with a reminder that she always available any time they needed her.

As it was from Pidge, she spent the next half hour nervously bent over the holo-keypad of her terminal, discussing and working out her reply with Coran, with all the graveness of a situation room in the middle of a prolonged and brutal war.

<Is the smiley face at the end too much?> Allura asked, her ears drooping in worry. <Maybe it’s too much. Especially because this could be a request for a serious talk, and that might make her think that I think this is going to just be a friendly chat, and then she’d just cancel and find someone else to talk with, and that might end up being Shiro and-->

Coran put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. <And I think that maybe you should keep the smiley face, add a personal touch to it. That’s how you show interest, don’t you? Give them the special treatment, go the extra mile where you wouldn’t with others.>

Allura frowned. <True…> She sighed. <Eluna, I feel like a teenaged girl panicking over her crush asking her out on a date!> she paused. <… Which isn’t entirely inaccurate, now that I’ve said it out loud...>

<Just calm down, Princess, and we’ll send her the best reply you can give,> Coran said.

And so they returned to discussing Allura’s reply, refining it, editing it, making sure that it conveyed exactly what she wanted it to, and that there wasn’t anything that could be misinterpreted or confuse Pidge in any way, shape or form, till she had the absolutely purest heart of her message, with just the right amount of personal touch and extra effort, without getting too blatant or desperate.

<Sure, Pidge. :)>

<’Brevity is wit,’ to quote one of the Old World’s great writers,> Coran said as Allura sent it.

She sighed as she looked at the holo-display; never had she thought the animation of one of her mice taking an enveloped into their mouth and scurrying off could make her so anxious.

<Message sent!> said Actaeon text on the screen as the mouse stopped and looked quite pleased with themselves.

<There...> she said as she slumped back into her seat. <It’s done. Now all I can do is wait… should I ask her to message me back?>

<Best not,> Coran replied. <There’s really no inconsuspicious reason for you to do so, and when she figures that out, it might strike a match to that legendary curiosity of hers. Then, there’d be no stopping her from prying you open instead of opening up to you.>

Allura nodded. <And here I thought courtship was complicated 1,000 years ago...>

Coran patted her again. <Just be yourself and prepare the best you can, your highness. You know: fluff up your nest, spritz something soothing into the air, maybe even doll yourself up and ‘get into something more comfortable’ as they say in Nivian.>

Allura blushed. <Coran!> she cried.

Coran looked confused. <What? What’d I say?>

<Your suggesting me and Pidge--!> she made a sexy animal noise.

Coran blinked. <When did I say that?>

<’Slip into something more comfortable’ is a euphemism for changing into lingerie, clothes more suitable for>--she made a sexy animal noise--<or just outright stripping naked,> Allura explained, cheeks still burning.

<Is it now? My goodness, only in Nivian could something so innocent and innocuous be given such a lewd spin...> he said as he shook his head.

<Just don’t use it again, Coran…> Allura muttered.

Coran smiled. <I won’t. And if I may point out, it seems you’ve been spending far too much time among the human settlements, too.>

Allura groaned. <I’m leaving!> she said as she got up and made haste for the door. <Good luck with the calls, Coran!>

<And good luck with your and Pidge’s ‘tête-à-tête!’> Coran said as he walked back to his terminal, put his headset back on, and forced a smile on his face. “Rune Terra, home of the Rune Rangers! This is Coran, Maiden Allura’s personal servant speaking, how may I help you...?”