#they have more official art than any anime I watched lately

[eeniiart]

🚨🌸🫖🚨

[aziraphales-library]

Hiiii! Thank your for your hard work, lovely mods!

I have a bit of a broader ask which makes filtering a bit difficult. I'm not looking for a specific fic or a specific trope but for fics that are a bit 'silly' (or maybe crack treated seriously) in one way or another while still set in the GO universe (so no human AU). Like 'One Night in Bangor' where there's an office party of Heaven/Hell or, or 'Do you know what eternity is' where Crowley fake proposes to set up a real proposal or those fics where one of them sets up a social media account (and accidentally confesses online - I've looked through the social media tag already :)). I hope you get what I'm trying to say. If any fic springs to mind that is a bit silly I would be glad to hear your recs :)

If this was too vague an ask that's also alright. Have a lovely day!

Hey! We have #crack and #social media tags, and I'd also recommend our #outsider pov tag as those fics often have a silly element to them. Here are more to add to the crack tag...

Game Night by amtm1017 (T)

Crowley strides back to the table with purpose, setting the sherry down in front of Aziraphale with a little more force than necessary. “You’re going to win this, you’re going to win trivia.” “Well, my darling, thank you for the enthusiasm, but what’s brought this on?” Crowley exhales, pressing his fingers to his temples. “I just got trash-talked by a man who sells cheese for a living, angel. Looked me dead in the eye and told me you weren’t smart enough to win a stupid pub quiz. Man probably spends his entire life talking about stilton, but apparently, we’re the ones who aren’t intellectually prepared.” Crowley leans in, bracing his elbows on the table. “I need you to crush them. I need you to obliterate them. I need you to make cheese-man question his entire life’s purpose. I need him to wake up at three in the morning for the next six months and think, I should never have doubted Aziraphale Fell." ---- Or It’s game night in Whickber street, and Aziraphale just wants to have a nice evening of trivia. Crowley, on the other hand, has somehow declared war on a local cheesemonger. things escalate. rapidly.

Snatched by demonsandpieohmy (M)

Aziraphale couldn’t just leave the body here. But what to do with it? A cemetery burial? He didn’t think Crowley would like being six feet closer to hell. Cremation? Absolutely not, he didn’t need to be burned again. Maybe he could arrange a burial at sea. Or shot into space - did humans have that technology yet? All this, while Crowley was still alive. Hell would never give him a new body. Crowley was going to be stuck down in that awful place forever, unless… ---- Crowley gets himself discorporated, so Aziraphale has to engage in a wee bit of body snatching.

What We Do in Tadfield by AetherBunny (T)

A Good Omens parody fic a la What We Do in the Shadows. There are demons living together in a house in the English countryside. A documentary crew follows them around for a while and discovers MUCH more than they bargained for! This is an AU that’s hard to describe in a few words, but easy to understand in the course of the story!

Cursed Creatures by MurphysScribe, pommedepersephone (T)

Hastur hits Crowley with a nasty curse, dooming him to a flu where he coughs up bizarre wild animals. Yes, you read that right. Aziraphale takes care of a miserably sick Crowley, and has to figure out how to get rid of an increasingly weird series of fauna. Because of course, miracles are off the table. (Note- tagging for nausea, but more of what happens is coughing, and more fantastical than bodily graphic)

The Art of Prestidigitation by DiningAtTheRitz9 (T)

Crowley invites Aziraphale to a costume party in the eighties. Shenanigans and feelings ensue.

The Ineffability of Fanfiction by HedgePodge (T)

Officially Muriel still works for heaven observing Aziraphale, but heaven's been quiet about it lately so they have time to work at the bookshop. One day, a human girl catches Muriel watching Crowley and Aziraphale pine at each other and invites Muriel to her writing group. A fanfiction writing group, specifically, whose primary subjects are Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley and Aziraphale are too busy hopelessly pining for each other to notice the writing club at first, but nothing stays secret for long. Surely a bunch of fictional romance stories won’t have any real effect on Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship. Then again, it could be the push they need to finally sort themselves out. (Set mid season 2. Features lots of fake fanfiction and real Aziracrow)

- Mod D

[kingdomoftyto]

I'm crying laughing, the DVDs are even worse than I remember... Season 1's menus are silent with a single static jpg of the same key character art they use for everything else, and the episodes on the Season 2 discs don't even match what's listed on the box! Absolutely stunning lack of shits given. Truly unparalleled. But I really shouldn't be surprised given... well... everything about how this series has been treated since the very beginning.

Time for a quick ~✨PHANDOM HISTORY LESSON✨~ to give newer/less hyperfixated folks more context for why the graphic novel being as great as it is is such a HUGE deal:

Danny Phantom was one of Nickelodeon's MAIN cartoons, in its time. It was a central pillar. One of the top three or four of their lineup, which is saying something when the competition includes the cultural juggernaut that is Spongebob.

Despite this, and despite its superhero theming making it perfectly marketable, it got basically ZERO official merch.

What little we did get was often ugly and very, very cheap. The dedication at the start of the graphic novel that jokes about collecting the Burger King toys? That's because it was some of the most notable merch the franchise EVER had. (I sadly do not have any of it. There was no BK in my hometown. Here's a pic from the internet, though, to give you an idea.)

If you think I'm exaggerating about that being the most significant physical merch to come out of the series, consider that the first video game had an entire menu option specifically for the Burger King promotional tie-in:

That video game, by the way, was one of only two ever based on the show. The first was an adaptation of "The Ultimate Enemy" in the style of a short sidescrolling beat-em-up, and the second was themed around "Urban Jungle" and (as far as I can tell--I've only played the first couple levels) was an arcade-style scrolling shooter. Both were for the Gameboy Advance, and both are...... fine, as far as cash-grabby video game tie-ins to kids' shows go. This was pretty normal for the time, so I suppose we did okay in that department, actually. They're not GOOD, but they're playable and have at least a bit of effort put into them.

But besides those two video games (plus a handful of simple, long-defunct Flash games on nick.com)? In the decade and a half since the show ended?

Nothing.

No books, no games, no comics, no web shorts--unless you count mega-crossovers with every other Nicktoon (a la Nicktoons Unite), or soulless promotional material like "Fairly Odd Phantom" (which, trust me, despite being the first new DP animation in over 10 years was not even worth the effort of watching).

...I think there was a limited edition FunkoPop once?

So yeah.

A Glitch in Time is not just the first cool, well-made thing we've seen from the franchise in a while. It's the first THING we've seen since the show. PERIOD. And arguably the first worthwhile supplementary material to EVER come out of the show, depending on how you feel about those GBA games and the Nicktoons crossovers.

This franchise is widely beloved even now, almost 20 years after it first aired, and it feels like that fact is now, finally, FINALLY getting some official recognition.

PLEASE read A Glitch in Time. Tell other people about it. The series--no, the fans--deserve this (and more of this, if the folks in charge see enough of a response and decide to grace us with any followup). It's LONG overdue, but better late than never.

[aledxaled]

The Locked Tomb Cohort uniforms (sketches & lineart)

Hellooooooooo !

I’ve been discovering Roblox and drawing the general formalwear of high ranking Cohort officials like Judith and Marta (so roughly 0-1 to 0-11 ranks) as of late :D

Here’s what I’ve come up so far :

- A Regency navy/Navy whites hybrid

- A 70s disco inspired one

- An I’ve been watching too many anime with not so practical but dashing military uniforms

- And a mixture of all the aboveeee

If you have any opinion whatsoever to help me decide which one I want to focus on don’t hesitate, although so far I’ve been obsessed with the first one more than reason : that one feels very simple but effective ?

Also, A big thank you for showing me so much love and demonstrating interest into my art & my interpretations of the series characters, it really made my summer :]

[lazytitans-world]

My research findings on the production of Wish

Never have I seen a fan community do so much with so little than I have with Wish. And to start off, I want to say that you should watch the movie first before going into this and the Starboy fandom as I believe it to be important on forming your own opinion before moving on as I find most of the fandom to have a negative view of the movie, one I do not really share. I found Wish to be fine. I did not hate it, but I did not love it like I do other Disney animated films. But the many rewrites, drawings and animatics featuring character designs that did not make it far in production have become icons in this community inspired me to do a deep dive to see if I could find where in production these concepts died and why.

To save you a read, this production was a victim of simplicity. I feel that many concepts and story ideas were tossed away due to complicating the story, which was always going to focus on Asha trying to save the wishes of her fellow kingdom citizens with the help of a wishing star. I have read many articles and watched a few deleted scenes from the home release and here are my findings.

Starboy never got far in development as the book states that the team went down "a few blind alleys" that lead them to star having a human design for a period. This is probably the period in time where all the Starboy concept art came from and where a potential romantic subplot with Asha was kicked around. It was.

What did Starboy in was the team's choice to make them a shapeshifter as the team thought the character was way overpowered and thus the story lost a lot of dramatic tension (a choice I kind of agree with). It was here where the design team decided that Star needed an overhaul and brought the Story Development artists in and this is where Starboy died and plush Star was finalized.

There are no official storyboards that feature the Starboy designs.

At the start of Wish's production, Frozen 2 was entering it's final stage of production (this would be either late 2018 or early 2019) and was obviously the main focus for Disney animation not to mention projects like Raya and the Last Dragon, Strange World and Encanto were entering their mid development stages before the shutdown.

The effects of the global shutdown were not mentioned in the book, but I would not be shocked if production was affected by it.

Ariana DeBose has said that Wish did not need a love story as she said that,

“I think we live in a time where things are cyclical, right? And so, it’s good for variance and perspective. Not every female Disney character needs to have a go and ambition of simply finding a man to love her. There are more stories to tell.

"And especially in the world we live in today I think something like Wish, that has a broader outlook that talks about community, is just as important as talking about love. And there are so many different ways to love."

"You do see familiar love, love of friendship" in the movie, including the relationship between Asha and Star. Star and Asha have this beautiful connection with each other and so I think it’s good reminding people that not only we can tell different stories, we can also talk about love in different ways.”(source: Exclusive: Wish’s Ariana DeBose defends lack of romance in recent Disney movies (yahoo.com)) whether Ariana had any say on story or character development is unknown.

7. From what I read from the Art of Wish book, the story was always meant to be about Asha defying Magnifico to fight for the people of Rosas and their wishes.

8. As it pertains to "At All Costs", a song that many are saying was meant to be a love song between Asha and Star, in an article by Variety(Julia Michaels Wrote 'Wish' Theme Before the Script Even Existed (variety.com), it states that a love song was not in the film at the time of production and songwriter Julia Michaels "wanted to write a song that as a standalone sounded like a love song that could be played at weddings."

Michaels would go on to say, "How cool would it be if we wrote a song that if you listened to on its own, it sounds like a love song, it could be something you could play at your wedding, or be a lullaby to your kids, just something really beautiful, but when you watch the film, it’s the heroine and it’s the villain.” She continues, “You realize they’re coming about this both from various points, one from a very selfless standpoint and one from a selfish standpoint.”

9. In the same Variety article, it was revealed that for some time in 2020, no script existed for the movie, but Julia Michaels was asked to be the songwriter for the movie and that is where she pitched "This Wish" which would go on to be one of the first songs revealed for the movie.

10. the Variety article also had Jennifer Lee, head of Disney Animation and one of the writers on Wish, say that she wanted a song that showed "it felt like to hold someone’s wish in your hand. How do we viscerally understand that when you’re with them, you feel like you’re holding someone’s raison d’être?” that song would end it being "At All Costs"

11. September 9, 2022, D23 Expo in Anaheim California. This is where certain members of the public got a glimpse of the production of Wish. Jennifer Lee, writer and director Chris Buck, and co-director Fawn Veerasunthorn spoke about the movie and showed the first look of the finalized design of Star which ended up being the mute plush model that ended up in the movie. This means there was a 3-year gap where Starboy and the romance side plot were discussed then shelved.

It was also during this show where the public would learn that Ariana DeBuse would voice Asha and that Alan Tudyk, a staple of past Disney animated films, would have a featured role in the movie as Asha's pet goat Valentino, who would be able to talk thanks to Star's magic. It was also at that show where DuBose came out to sing "This Wish" but at the time the song was called "More for Us".

Magnifico was not revealed at the event but was teased as "one of the most formidable foes in Disney history" which is debatable to say the least.

12. 5 deleted scenes in total appear on the Wish digital and disc copies each introduced by head of story Mark Kennedy where he would describe why the scene got cut. One scene shows Amaya assisting Magnifico in his plan, tying into an early concept where she was a villain alongside him.

Another scene had Asha, Star (who in this scene could shape shift and talk) and Valentino try to sneak into Rosas before being spotted and chased by Amaya, once again acting antagonistic to Asha.

A scene had Magnifco gather the people of Rosas to demand Star be given to him, as he had never seen Star in this version, and Asha her friends try to distract him by having Valentino, who in this version had a more Steve Carell like voice, pretend to be Star while the real Star, who was voiced in this version and was designed as ball of light with eyes and mouth, was trying to free the captured wishes. This scene was changed because they wanted Magnifco to be more threatening and instead of asking the people for Star, he would capture Star. Kennedy would go on to say that they wanted Asha and Magnifico to be smart and that Asha would not do a plan that silly, and they wanted the climax to be Magnifico and Asha alone, so they set it on a platform high above Rosas.

The next scene featured an ally of Asha's named Flazino that was cut out in order to shrink her friend group and tied the group back to the seven dwarfs from Snow White.

Finally, there was a scene where Asha and her grandfather scaled a wishing tree with her grandfather Sabino that showcased their bond but also Sabino's insistence that Asha take down Magnifico.

Each of these scenes felt completely different to the movie that ended up being released.

13. It should be noted that Wish released only a short while after the 2023 Writers and Actors strikes, which meant that for most of the summer and fall of that year, the actors could not do any press for the movie and all marketing was done through ads, trailers and merchandise.

14. As revealed in an article for Disney twenty-three, a magazine for gold members of the Disney D23 Fanclub, in the early visual development stage, there was a test scene that Asha was briefly transported to the village from Pinocchio. This was done to see how the 3D character designs would match with the hand drawn, watercolor backgrounds of classic Disney movies.

15. In that same article, Chris Buck said that in regard to Magnifico's character development that they wanted the audience "to see the evolution of a villain, so he's not a monster from frame one". From what becomes of Magnifico I get what they tried to do, they wanted to show how a character falls into villainy even if they're intentions are good. It also stands with the modern writing style of Disney animation films trying to update classics, this time by having audiences start off by kind of liking the villain through their personality alone.

18. The article also briefly mentions that Star "went through many iterations" another hint of Starboy being considered as a final design.

19. In the Art of Wish book, there is a page that shows the script where Asha meets Star and Star is described as a "cuddly, 3D, five-pointed star." This would indicate that the Starboy concept never got to the scripting stages.

20. In Art of Wish, the reason why Star does not speak is because the film makers wanted to stick to a tenet of film making, show don't tell.

21. Star's face was inspired by the mask like face of early Mickey Mouse cartoons.

22. From all readings, it is safe to say that Asha was NEVER considered to be a princess in any of the iterations of the story as some writers felt it to be too safe of a choice and liked the idea of an ordinary citizen going against the established power of the king.

23. During production, the Disney CEO position changed twice as Bob Iger left the company in early 2020 and named Bob Chapek as his replacement before returning to the company in mid 2023. It is unknown if these changes had any effects of Wish's production as it was it stated development as Iger's first tenure was ending but took place during a majority of Chapek's time.

24. When Angelique Cabal, who voiced Amaya in Wish, first auditioned for the role the character in 2022 Amaya was written as a villain while Magnifico was supposed to be the good king. It was when she returned for the callback that Amaya was changed to what she ended up being in the movie. Source https://www.cinemablend.com/interviews/how-one-character-disney-wish-completely-changed-during-production

In closing, for fans of the Starboy concept, it saddens me to say that it looks the idea only made it as far as concept art as at the time of writing this, no animated sequences, scripts or storyboards have been released that had Star in a human design or discussed a romantic relationship with Asha. I believe the writing team found a romantic relationship between Star and Asha too complicated for the story and decided to simplify the relationship and design of Star to better suit the plot of Asha going against Magnifico. I am disappointed Wish did not go with the more interesting concepts but maybe down the line we'll get that cosmic Disney romance and a villain couple, it just has to work with the story.

I want to say thank you for those that made it to the end, this movie has been on my mind for quite a while and seeing all the re-writes, drawings and animations people have done for Starboy and Asha has been amazing to see. These works have inspired me to rewatch Wish at some point to see if Starboy could have worked in the movie with the story as is, and even share how I would have changed a few things in the story to fit the character and a romantic subplot with Asha plus an idea on how to bring in Starboy while still staying true to the established cannon.

I do hope others watch and enjoy Wish as from what I have read the team did put a lot of effort to makes this movie worthy of not only the high standards Disney animation has set, but as a piece of the 100-year story telling of the Walt Disney company. Film making is already hard enough as it is, especially in animation, but having to make a movie with an original concept and characters that still pays tribute to 100 years of storytelling is a daunting task and I understand and respect the choices they made when making the film and you should as well.

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episode 1 Subbed (Finalized Re-Release)

(Original Finalized Release Post)

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-1: Yugi's Successor

On his way to the Entrance Exams for the Duel Academia High School, Judai Yuki meets the legendary duelist Yugi Mutou and receives a card from him. Running late, Judai arrives at the venue and requests to take his exam, but Instructor Chronos sees Judai's exam as pointless given his lackluster score on the written exam. A duel begins between Judai and Chronos, and Chronos's rare Antique Gear Golem card uses its powerful 3000 ATK to damage Judai. His back against the wall, Judai hears the voice of a Monster--which turns out to belong to the card he received from Yugi, Winged Kuriboh...

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

...I first posted the original finalized version of this episode almost 10 years ago??? Time is an illusion...

Fresh off the presses, it's a re-finalized version of my episode 1 subs! Well, probably re-re-re-re-finalized given my penchant for consistency and quality after previous revisions in the past 2-3 years, between fixing a handful of animation errors and terminology revisions... But this one merited a new post not so much for any updated translations, but because after casually skimming through this episode a while back, I noticed more animation errors, all card-related, that I'm now able to fix as I have for episodes since. You know the deal with this one, I'm sure; new kid on the block bumps into the Game King himself as he runs late for his Academia exam and manages to hit one of the school's best with his skills--literally. Fun opening episode to a fun series.

With this, I'm hoping to officially call this episode finalized for good, mainly because the kind of annoying thing about doing further revisions now is that, thanks to my solid-state drive (SSD) failing in October of 2022, I lost my personal copies of the episode scripts with the ATK/DEF counters I stylize and all, so it means I have to cut/stitch together different parts of the episode between the fixes I applied and the previous hardsub to account for the stat-counter subs or the eyecatch subs I started doing--since the softsub MKVs I release don't have those specific subs, they're easier to update. So I hopefully shouldn't be touching anything before episode 84 (the first one I finalized after getting a new drive) again and those can ideally be considered finalized for good. I'm hoping I can also give that title to 84-109 (where I currently am), but I'd like to think I didn't miss anything, lol.

Anyway, as mentioned, this revision applies several card-related fixes to the episode, some of which replicate fixes 4Kids did for the dub that I took a cue from. The fixes were added to the last DVDRip I released, subsequently made into a new softsub MKV, both of which will be up on NAC soon with the updated hardsub. List below the cut below as always, for the interested~ (Nice thing with some of these is that the frame rate was usually consistent, which meant that editing most panning shots and the occasional zoom shots were usually more of a breeze than later on, haha.)

Enjoy, folks; with this out of the way, since it's been about two weeks since 108 and 109 were finished up, I'll start setting up stuff for finalizing 110 while doing a little more TFSP work here/there before I fully start on 110 sometime next week. Stay tuned!

Fixes & Edits!

*The bolded edits below were applied back in 2021 and were added into the original release post; adding them here for completeness.

Applied a card back to an orange rectangle that was a face-down card during the panning shot of the Exam Duels going on over the episode’s opening narration as it fades to Chronos watching, repeating the edit as it pans back around again before fading to Manjoume and Ryou/Asuka watching.

As Misawa's exam proctor says that he stands no chance against his Super Defense Deck, the blank-art cards on his Disk for Big Shield Guardna and Gear Golem the Moving Fortress are reversed (the wider side for the effect box should be on the right). Fixed by applying proxies on them for a frame in AfterEffects, masking in the card outlines for blending, before taking that frame into Sony Vegas and zooming it out for the zoom shot here.

As Misawa's Ring of Destruction destroys Vorse Raider, we see the smoke rush onto the proctor's side of the field--and as we do, we can quickly see the blank-art Big Shield Guardna and Gear Golem cards on his Disk are again reversed before the smoke covers them. Fixed first in AfterEffects by slapping the proxies on for a frame, then in Vegas by taking that frame into and keyframing it to the rapid panning shot for most of its 17 frames. (Incidentally, throughout this scene, a different error happens in the dub, where aside from keeping the cards' orientation on the proctor's Disk incorrect, they also shuffle between Gear Golem and Big Shield Gardna being Normal or Effect Monsters--bit of an identity crisis!)

Fixed the error with Misawa’s LP dropping from 3000 after he uses Ring of Destruction to finish his Exam Duel; should have dropped from 3200.

After the proctor's LP drop to zero, he congratulates Misawa on his win, but the Gear Golem card on his Disk is reversed. Fixed first in AfterEffects by applying my proxy for a few frames, then taking one of those frames into Vegas to lightly keyframe as the shot pans left. (As a fun editing aside, I could tell 4Kids likely edited this in a similar way to how I did because as the cards fade out, you can briefly see some residue of Manjoume's hair outline on Big Shield Gardna's card which they didn't cover up; I definitely made sure I went the extra mile with redrawing the arena floor to cover that haha.)

After Misawa thanks the proctor, we zoom out to Manjoume in the stands as the Solid Vision fades out, but the cards under Big Shield Guardna and Gear Golem are--you guessed it--reversed. Fixed in a few ways, with the goal being to redo Big Shield Guardna and Gear Golem fading out--first, in Vegas, I took the first frame after they're gone and zoomed it into place at the start of the zoom, which let me cover up Gear Golem and most of Big Shield Guardna, but because Manjoume's hair moves upward as the shot zooms out, doing this means I couldn't fully cover it. So, I then took this first post-fadeout frame into Photoshop, where I used the Clone Tool to duplicate the arena floor and cover up the rest of Big Shield Guardna, reinserting it into Vegas and applying the zoom keyframes I did to the earlier frames to it--this lets my edited frame properly zoom out with the shot. Once done, I went into AfterEffects and applied the Big Shield and Gear Golem proxies onto the shot's first frame, masking them above the cards, then took that frame into Vegas to zoom out with the shot (rather easily, luckily, thanks to the frame rate note I mentioned up top), masked out Big Shield and Gear Golem and made them fade out into the edited frame in the layer below. With that set, all I had left was to go back and mask Manjoume's hair back above the edits for the duration of the fade, which was pretty easy, and boom goes the dynamite.

After Judai's duel with Chronos starts, he summons out Elemental Hero Featherman, but the card gets placed reversed on his Disk. Fixed in AfterEffects by applying a proxy first to one frame during the initial light zoom-out in the shot, taking the fixed frame into Vegas to re-zoom and hold once the zoom was over.

Chronos reacts to Featherman's summon, and as Featherman lands in front of Judai, his card on his Disk is reversed again, but also as the screen pans right, for a few frames as Judai moves to then place a card face-down, the shadow under his left leg goes from being more gray to black, turning back to gray once he stops moving. Fixed in AfterEffects first by placing a correctly facing proxy on his Disk for a frame, which I then took into Vegas and re-panned into the shot; while in Vegas, I then masked in the gray leg shadow over the black, masking in part of Featherman's ATK/DEF counter over the edit to blend it in.

In the next shot, as Judai ends his turn and their LP counters pop up, the Featherman card under him on the field is reversed; fixed in AfterEffects by slapping in a proxy, masking Featherman back in above it.

[cont below]

(10) After Chronos uses Confiscation, as he sends Judai's Revival of the Dead/Monster Reborn to his Cemetery, a few things happen: 1) the Featherman card on his field under him on the field is facing Chronos in Attack Mode, and 2) it's in the wrong Zone on Judai's Disk, as it should be in Monster Zone 3. I fixed this a few ways, first fixing the Featherman-on-field aspect in AfterEffects, applying a Defense-Mode proxy under Featherman and masking him and Judai back over it; I then took a cue from 4Kids and took the frame immediately after his Cemetery stops being lit up (but before Judai starts to move) and the frames as Judai moves into Photoshop, where I copied the empty Zone 1 into place over Zone 2, blending it in with some minor editing, and combined it with the AfterEffects edit I then did by applying a Featherman proxy in Defense Mode to Zone 3. After throwing everything into Vegas, I then applied some masking to a solid-white color layer to replicate the lights coming from Judai's Cemetery slot (helped by the fact that, luckily, the lights don't move). (The dub, for their part, only handled the Disk aspect, applying a weird light to cover up their Zone 2 edit while the Graveyard was lit up, leaving the Featherman card on the field as it originally was, OCG format and all lol.)

(11) Chronos activating Heavy Storm causes a huge storm of wind on the field, and as it gets to Judai's field, we see that the Defense-Mode Featherman card on the field under Featherman is reversed. Fixed first in AfterEffects, applying a proxy in a frame where most of the card was visible and masking Featherman back above it, then taking that frame into Vegas where I first redid the panning that happens, then I created a solid-color layer colored like the wind and applied some masking to replicate the gusts of wind that blow over the card.

(12) After Chronos summons his Wicked Lord Tokens and the crowd reacts, the smoke on the field from their summon simmers down, but the Featherman card under Featherman is reversed again. Fixed in AfterEffects by applying a correctly facing proxy and then masking Featherman back on top.

(13) After the commercial break, fixed the error with a Ra Yellow student’s miscolored jacket as he and the others watch Antique Gear Golem being summoned, thanks to thepalebride’s help.

(14) After crowd reaction to Antique Gear Golem being summoned, Asuka looks out onto the field and says she unfortunately heard the sound of the Academia's gates closing shut for Judai--as she does, we see that the blank-art card under Featherman is reversed. Fixed first in AfterEffects by applying a proxy under him in the first frame of the shot and masking him back on top, then taking that frame into Vegas where I re-panned it as the shot pans upward.

(15) After a brief blush, Judai summons out Winged Kuriboh, but he places it reversed on his Disk--and in the very next shot, it's correctly facing such that its name box is to our left. Fixed in AfterEffects by applying a proxy as he places it on his Disk, masking his fingers over it.

(16) After Antique Gear Golem destroys Winged Kuriboh and Judai tells Chronos that it reduces his damage to zero--to Asuka's shock--Judai takes Winged Kuriboh off his Disk and places it in his Cemetery slot in a quick shot, but the card is reversed again. Also fixed by 4Kids, I fixed this in AfterEffects by applying a proxy facing correctly in the frames in which Judai moves it.

(17) After summoning Flame Wingman, and after some taunting from Chronos, Judai activates an arena as heroic as he is in Skyscraper, but as he does so, Flame Wingman is missing from his Disk, as it should be in Zone 3. Fixed first in AfterEffects by applying a proxy (after finding the best-quality screenshot of Wingman's anime art and touching it up using an AI tool [I think I settled on Waifu]), fading it in as the scene fades from the Judai closeup to Judai about to swing his Disk around, and adding it as he does so, then applying a brightening and dimming as the Solid Vision lights go on around him. Once I did that, I went into Vegas and applied some masking on the little flickers that pop up over that zone to blend the edit in. (Side-Note: while dubifying the Skyscraper card in Judai's hand, 4Kids forgot to mask in his thumb over it, begging the question... how is Jaden holding that?)

(18) Fixed the blank Normal Monster card that should be Flame Wingman, both as Antique Gear Golem crashes onto Chronos and as the duel fades to an end.

[josseff]

A Late SpyxAnya Review

I forgot to mention but I finished the SpyxAnya video game last week finally… I got that game in the summer, that should tell you a lot how I feel about that game…

—EDITORS NOTE: This gets really ranty by the end and I apologize

Now that I finished it I feel like I can give a proper review, I don’t want this to be complaint the whole time so I’ll start off with things I actually liked and liked a LOT about the game!

The biggest thing I love about the game is the really high quality artwork the game has, there’s not much of them but I love all of the ones they have. they’re based off the anime art style and not the manga but that’s completely fine and more recognizable to be fair. (All artwork in this post is taken from the game)

They also actually got the official Japanese voice actors from the anime to voice almost all of the dialogue in the game! Which is an amazing treat!

Finally, they have lots of cool little references and there’s quite a LOT of costume customization, way more than I expected.

Now to the stuff I didn’t like…

First thing to get out of the way, and most of you have noticed is the graphics quality…

This comparison is so funny because they actually cut from the left image to the right in a cutscene, and I think it shows how inaccurate the graphics are to the artstyle it’s attempting to recreate in 3d. I’m not gonna get footage but the character animations aren’t anything special either, loid is often sitting very hunched over and awkwardly in chairs for example. It doesn’t help that I played on switch and not PS5/PC I guess. But even those versions still look like a mobile game

Mini Games

These are honestly the only time there’s any actual “gameplay” besides walking around and moving a camera. You’ll need to play these to get money for costumes and buying the “special items” to progress the game

Now let me say I DID actually enjoy a handful of these games, albeit some a lot more than others, there’s a different issue I have with them and that’s completeing them.

There’s 3 difficulties for each, each difficulty also has its own 3 optional missions for raffle tickets (which you use to win random costume parts) but the way to complete these are awful. You can only complete 1 objective at a time for some reason and you need to h beat every objective to get the next difficulty… why???

That means if you’re insane you need to play each minigame a minimum of 9 times assuming you complete an objective each time, oh and I forgot to mention you need to pay 100 eurekas to play one minigame (which you obtain those when you take a photo). Some mini games can take at LEAST up to 5 minutes a playthrough, which do the math (5x9) and that’s like 45 minutes playing the same mind numbing minigame.

Don’t even start me on the originality of the minigames, some actually are references to the show but then there’s… really bad bowling? Bad Mobile game auto runners? Bad PacMan and Mappy clones?????? THE SAME CARD GAME TWICE???

Finally… the gameplay!

Now the actual gameplay isn’t as frustrating at least, just a million more times boring. The goal of the game is to take all the super special photos at each location, which is fine. It’s just that you NEED to go to each location a minimum of 2 times because you can only take 2 photos per visit? And then you have to wait 3 whole ingame days to visit it again, which is not fun at all. Not a lot to say about the actual gameplay because of how “nothing” it is.

FINAL VERDICT

It’s… an interesting game to say the least…

It took me about 15 - 20 hours to complete somehow. The game should’ve been 5 with how little it has to offer. Just a very bloated and drawn out feeling game with not much substance. I would’ve preferred a visual novel spyxfamily game than a weird minigame collection with the slowest gameplay ever.

I give SpyxAnya operation memories a 4/10, it’s interesting, even as a spyxfamily fan I couldn’t really enjoy this. You’re better just watching gameplay on YouTube and googleing the gallery images instead of spending your money on this… I REALLY hope Bandai namco doesn’t make another spyxfamily game… I believe a good game could work with spyxfamily just this isn’t it.

[moonspirit]

Hello! I'm super late to the aot and aruani train (having just binged the entire show start to finish like 2 months ago over 4 days lmao) but I just gotta say that I really enjoyed your Fort Salta series! Annie and Armin were legit my favourites already during my first watch of the anime, and it really saddened me to know that it seems alot of people online really hate Annie? Like (no hate on any other characters) but Annie is legit best girl how tf can people hate on her ;-; Anyways, I've been ecstatic since I've found your fics and blog along with many others (shoutout to distortedclouds and flailingkittylover too!!) bc it felt like I finally found my people - good to know I'm not the only one brain-rotting from this show and especially over these two xD I've been dying to talk to someone about this recent discovery of mine since I've started reading the manga though...did you know that Armin has been taller than Annie since even before she was crystalized?? In the anime he's like the shortest person pre-timeskip beside Historia, but turns out it's not the case in the manga! In volume 8 when Armin confronts Annie in Stohess, he's clearly drawn to be slightly taller than her in the scene - I thought it was just a perspective error, but it's drawn that way over multiple pages so it's definitely intended! Makes the whole height/size difference thing even more adorable omg ;-;

Ahhh hello there! First off: Welcome, welcome to the Aot fandom, and the AruAni fandom in particular! No time is too late, we're all happy to have one new aruani fan join in haha xD

I agree that while it's very sad seeing the Annie haters, it's best to ignore them. They may have their reasons or not (tho tbh, those of us in the Annie/AruAni fandom would say they just have a very poor or nil understanding of her character). Annie's an extremely well written character honestly; @distortedclouds and I once had this conversation where she was talking about how Isayama managed to give Annie flawless character development in spite of portraying her as the non-typical badass female (in that she doesn't have huge, heroic ambitions and etc) - and I agreed wholeheartedly. Annie's very strong and lethal, but in her vulnerability and desire to be loved and wanted, I think we can all see a bit of ourselves.

Wait I digressed xD My point: Annie's best girl, and we stay away from the haters and stick to worshipping her. Strengthening the Temple of Annie Leonhardt must be our ultimate goal.

I would go on a rant about Armin too being the best, bestest, bestestest boy, and of our other goal of strengthening the Temple of Armin Arlert, but that is for another post, maybe xD

Regarding the height difference! I believe it's an established fact that Armin has always been taller than Annie, right from the beginning. If I remember right, the official Character Guidebook (2014) which was based on the first 11 volumes of the manga, listed Armin as 163cms while Annie was 153. While he's one of the shortest among the boys in general (and post-timeskip he's taller than Levi), he's been at least a whole head taller than Annie ever since they joined the military. Post timeskip, he's 169cms while Annie remains apparently unchanged, so the gap is larger, and likely to grow an inch or two more (since he's only 19). Anyway, yes it's fucking cute, and don't get me started on the size difference 🫠🫠🫠

Once again, welcome to the aruani fandom here, there's lots of lovely people with great blogs writing fics, making art, brainrotting 24/7 and posting about AruAni all the time, and we're very happy to have you be a part of it, here!

And thank you so much for reading the Fort Salta series T/////T I'm very grateful.

[katmaibearfan]

Blog FAQ

Have a question about something related to this blog and can't find an answer somewhere else? Check here before you send me an ask!

This is a constant work-in-progress, and is subject to change and grow as the scope of this blog changes and grows as well.

Questions About Me:

Whats your main blog?

@caseyscraftycorner -- i mostly reblog stuff but also post about fiber arts, board games, ttrpgs (note: not d&d 5e), and various musings.

Who are the bears in your pfp/header image?

Right now, the bear in my profile picture is 903 Gully and the bear in my header image is 151 Walker. The photos are screenshots from the Explore.org cams and were taken by me in fall 2024

How do you know so much about the bears?

See the media links in my new pinned post. It's all just those and the powers of autism and adhd.

When did you start watching the bear cams?

I started watching them (or highlights re-posted to youtube) occasionally back in 2019, after 435 Holly won Fat Bear Week, but it wasn't until 2023 that i got really into them.

How do you find so much time to watch the live cams and post about them?

I'm unable to work due to a combination of physical, developmental, and mental illness disabilities, and I need to fill my time somehow. Also, it's good background noise to have on when I'm crocheting/knitting/making pixel art.

How many bears can you identify?

It depends on some specific circumstances, but i'd say i can generally identify about a dozen of the bears at Brook's River. This might sound like a lot, but keep in mind that ~80 non-cub bears are seen at brooks river each year.

Can you identify this bear for me?

Nope! Your best bet is to check the comments on the live cams for an ID. That's where I get about 90% of the IDs in my posts from.

You blocked me/my friend, what gives?

if I have blocked someone on this blog it's probably because I saw something transphobic on their blog. I'm a nonbinary man, so transphobes will be blocked on sight. I also block blogs that are blank, to reduce bots. The only other situation in which I block people is when they post about hunting bears specifically, but this is really uncommon for me to run into and as such is not likely to be the answer.

You blocked me on your personal account, can you tell me why?

No, and asking me this will get you blocked here too. I block people liberally on my main account for personal reasons. If i block you there & not here, you can assume you didn't do anything "wrong" to get blocked. It's a me thing & you just happened to run up against it.

Questions About Blog Language & Topics

Why do you list most bears' ages as X.5 years?

Brown Bears are born in mid-winter, and we see them between late June and late October, so it's more accurate. it's also the terminology used by Katmai, particularly for cubs.

Why do only some bears have names, and are those official or unofficial names?

All bears that frequent Brooks Falls have numbers, but only some have names. The older bears with names (for example: Holly, Otis, Chunk, Grazer) were largely named by rangers at Katmai. However, the NPS has moved away from naming monitored animals, due to the issue of subconscious pet-ification or humanization of wild animals by humans. You can read more about their position here. Young bears with names (for example: 428 Studious and 429 Social) are named by the bear cam viewers and not staff at Katmai, so their names are unofficial -- though you may still see these unofficial names used for Fat Bear Week, which is affiliated with the Katmai Conservancy rather than the NPS.

Which bears are related to who/are there any family trees/is 856 503's father/etc

Bear pregnancy is complicated. Both sows and boars mate with multiple partners during mating season, and bears from the same litter can have different fathers. Therefore, any ideas about any boar being any specific bear's father is purely speculation unless we have DNA evidence.

In addition, unless we see a cub with their mother in early summer and then they separate shortly afterwards, saying that any specific subadult was any specific cub is also generally speculation (again, unless there is DNA evidence) because cubs especially can change a lot between when they go to den and when they emerge from their den. The guesswork we do here is more reliable than guessing fathers, but it is still fundamentally guesswork. There are DNA collection efforts every few years at Katmai, to monitor the genetic diversity of the bears in the area, but not enough bears have had their DNA collected at this point to accurately map most families at this time.

[kelmcdonald]

August Newsletter: Back From Comic Con

Hi everyone! And welcome to everyone who signed up for my newsletter at San Diego Comic Con. It was fun to see a San Diego Comic Con where comics were the focus again.  If you're new here I'm making these comics:

Blue Moon is a werewolf romance gn I'm writing and Meredith McClarren is going to draw. I'm late on its script. 

The City Between is my webcomic about werewolves in the future. It updates Wednesdays. The current story is called Shards of Reflection. 

You are the Chosen One is a fantasy comic about 23 kids who got the same prophecy dream. It was posting on Fridays on my Patreon. But my editorial work has been piling up/overwhelming me lately. So it's on hold until I finish up some other stuff. 

My day job is an editor at the manga company Seven Seas and the indie comic publisher Iron Circus Comics. I like folklore, fantasy, and especially like werewolves. 

This month I'm making tweaks to my website. So we finished some more minor switches like adding more social media buttons to the top bar. But this month we are gonna revamp the store section. Speaking of the store, Misfits of Avalon volume 1 is out of print. I just sent the last ten copies to White Squirrel who handles my store fulfillment. I'm not gonna sell it at cons anymore. In about a year or so, I'll probably talk to Darkhorse about putting it back online and printing an omnibus. 

This month's werewolf movie is The Howling 2. I'm showing it in my discord server August 30th at 5pm PST. Pop in to join if you like!   

As always I'll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST

Wednesday 8pm-10pm PST

Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

On August 24th, we'll have Tracy Butler of Lackadaisy Cats on Iron Circus Geekshow as a guest to close out the wildly successful Iron Circus crowdfund for Lackadaisy Season 1.

So last month I was too wiped to post photos of going to the Del Tor that I went to in June. But I sat down and put them in a drive that anyone can browse. So have a look if you wanna see some of the puppets used in the Pinnocino movie. 

While I was at San Diego Comic Con, I went to a Junji Ito exhibit. It was very cool seeing his originals. I always think its cool to see how different artists end up using white out or what needs correcting. All the photos I took during SDCC are also in a drive for you to browse. 

If you just want to see cosplayers though and not horror art I posted cosplay photos on my instagram.

As for what I'm working on, I'm still playing catch up on stuff from shake ups at Iron Circus Comics. So I'm officially putting You are the Chosen One on hold until I have Blue Moon scripted. I might put it on hold longer because I realize I'm almost half way through Shards of Reflection and haven't finished the next City Between stories's script. I'm pretty sure more people read/are interested in The City Between than You are the Chosen One. So it's got to take priority. 

Some time this month I need to find time to clean up Murky Water. It got it's first proofreading pass and I need to fix text. Then I need to start building a crowdfund for it and decide when and where to run it. Iron Circus has been having good luck with Backerkit, but it's back end is overly complicated in my opinion. Meanwhile, I said last year that I probably wasn't gonna use Kickstarter again because of them moving to the blockchain. They have kinda walked that back, but not 100%. Either this month or next, I'll type something up and ask what you all think of both platforms. 

With all this on my plate, I haven't had much time to check out new stuff. Plus with the writers/actor strike, I don't want to promo any TV or Movies I've been watching. The makes my what I've been checking out section pretty focused/brief. 

I started reading Berserk. 

And it's really really good.

If you are unfamiliar with Berserk, it's a classic manga/anime. And about a year ago it's creator, Kentaro Miura, died. Since then more and more people online have been giving it new attention and encouraged people to sit down and read it. The youtuber Super Eyepatch Wolf had a video that got me interested, Then FD Signifier brought it up in his videoessay about masculinity and anime. And then War Rocket Ajax reviewed it on Comic Catch up. So I pulled the trigger and read a big chunk of it. 

And like I said, it's really really. It's extremely violent and frequently indulges in edge lord levels of grim dark. So skip it if you don't like extreme violence. But there is some beautiful character moments that are all the more touching because they contrast the violence. 

It's just some really good comic storytelling. 

That's it for this month. Thanks everyone for your support!

[chromochaotic]

Reads of 2023 Part II (so far)

i was sad i couldn't fit all the cover pictures in my Part I post without it going off the screen, so might as well split it into 2 posts! update as of 6/11!

thoughts/reviews:

Heaven Official's Blessing: Volume 1

It's happening! My friends have been deep in this author's works/fandom for a while now, I'm pretty late to the party... Well, I guess I've dabbled in some of the animated/live action content that's out there for the different series. Anyway, this was a fun read! There's something so lush about historical dramas that definitely comes through here. When you add in the bits of humor and adventure, the whole story is really refreshing.

Even though the translation is still a tiny bit unprofessional, it's clearer than other options, haha. I was able to get a way better sense of the world and characters on this attempt (I had a good time watching the animated show! But as my friend put it, the season moved lightning fast, so it brushed over a lot of things). I don't have any other real nitpicks, other than like... the odd sexism that pops up now and then. Lmao

I am ofc in love with the main characters... They invented love... They invented devotion... I'm also delighted by the pace of things! Their relationship has managed to be both teasingly slow (like, the gradual reveal of Hua Cheng's true identity) but also very satisfyingly forward (the escorting!! the painting!! the righteous anger!!). Excited to see where things go with them, and the rest of the cast! (3.5/5—would be a 4, but the translation still kind of hampers things.)

Naomi Vandoren's Forest of Light

The second art book I bought from this artist! Same thoughts as before; for a quick browse, this was a refreshing little collection. Her style is just nice and soothing, with some fun surrealism/dreamscape vibes thrown in.

I'm not sure I'll buy any more of these, since the book didn't add quite as much insight into the works as I was hoping. Plus some of the concepts don't really resonate with me/seem that well researched...

I think one of my favorite things included was this abstract work the artist did—she wrote that she started with random watercolor mark-making, and then turned that into a piece. Those were very cool explorations! (2.5/5)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian

Done!! With the series! (Unless... It looks like there might be some followups to the main story?) I understand why the darker tone got dialed up, and other than the excursion with Nico, why the story kind of broke from the wacky-roadtrip vibe of the others. It made sense, while still keeping some of the lighthearted narration from the others, which was nice. I think what I appreciate the most about the series is the fun it has with its world. (Side note—I watched the movie based on the first book recently, and I can only assume it didn't do well! Bc omg, it completely missed the mood of the books. Instead of lingering on the whimsy, they focused on... making Grover a very cringey stereotype? Nah.) (ALSO??? THEY CUT OUT MY DAUGHTER CLARISSE????? THE AUDACITY???????)

I think my biggest gripe with the book was the very weird way the Annabeth-Percy-Rachel dynamic was handled. Like, it just got kind of tiring after a bit, especially with the way Annabeth acted so uncharacteristically catty at times. Plus, like, Percy's off falling in love with Calypso after like 5 minutes, the girl is right that he's kind of flighty. Rachel's ending also felt, just... eh.

Other than that, I was very into the last book!! There were some really moving character moments, like, Nico struggling with his place in the story, everything we learned about Luke... AND THE BIGGEST MASTERSTROKE OF ALL!!! I have been waiting to scream about the sapphic Patrochilles take??? At the end??? Clarisse has two hands and she can hold both Chris's and Silena's. She was moved to go into battle!!!! For her!!!!! She defeated one of the most terrifying foes in NO ARMOR just with a SICK ASS SPEAR and I LOVE HER. Anyway no notes, except they better do Clarisse justice in the new adaptation or I will riot. (4/5)

Secrets of the Oak Woodlands

Ooo I'm out of practice doing these reviews... Mostly from a funny cocktail of outside factors slowing me down, but also because nonfiction can be such a slog for me to get through. Tragic, because I do want to learn more ecology, I'm just... bad at it. Anyway! Bought this book on a fun West Coast road trip, I think I picked this up in the Sequoia National Park gift shop? The writing itself is great, especially how it tackles some pretty complex concepts in a way that's approachable. The book doesn't feel like Baby's First Nature Guide, but it also doesn't completely lose me when it explores why coyote populations actually rise when they're hunted or why Oak Mistletoe is a keystone species.

Even though the watercolor illustrations in the book were lovely, I sort of wish the visuals could have focused more on the tougher scientific concepts being explained. Like, instead of the illustrated "anecdote" of a quail sitting sentry, it could have been good to have a cross-section diagram of an oak gall or something. I guess it's always hard to balance interest and clarity in scientific writing, though. Overall, I think this was a pretty good eco-starter book! I'm just a square peg trying to force myself into a round hole, reading these nonfiction books. (So... 3/5?)

The Dragon's Bride

Hoo boy... Hoo boy... Listened to this audiobook at the recommendation of my friend who's very into erotica/romances. Which was an adventure, for me! To start with the good points, I really like the founding premise of this whole world/story. Deals with demons walk that perfect line for me of intricate and taboo power dynamics—and at the same time, the author satisfied my inner hopeless romantic by making all the demons (that we've met so far, at least) morally viable! So yeah, the world building and characterization is really nice, tbh.

I think my two sticking points are the smut itself, and that I didn't find these particular protags very compelling... It's interesting comparing this to, say, an above-average smut fic. On the one hand this has better prose, but on the other hand the smut veered into being a little too flowery now and then... (not to say all the sex scenes were like that. Uh. There were some choice ones.) I also personally found the frequency of the sex scenes a little ridiculous, but for most people that's probably a positive! 😂 And then, when it comes to the main characters themselves, I think they were well-rounded and the dynamic itself made sense. The personalities just aren't the kind I normally latch onto, though—they're not my blorbos, you know? So, where I'd go into a smut fic already attached (and therefore more into the smut itself), these... I could take it or leave it, haha.

That said, this installment did pique my interest for others in the series. I'm curious about the one with the succubus........ And the one with Eve..................... Those tidbits seem more up my alley. :] Also, the voice acting was pretty fun, tbh. They got separate VAs for Briar and Sol, the two POV characters, and they knocked it out of the park (even/especially in the smut scenes)! (well, except for a very funny instance where the guy VA had to voice Briar's lines in a smut scene in a Sol POV chapter. Damn, did he try.) Might pick up one of the other installments... if they come out on audiobook! (3.5/5)

Legends & Lattes

Another recommendation!! From a different friend! Apparently this book is popular on booktok but since booktok sounds like a cesspool (not really—pls don't come for me) I'm glad I didn't know that going in. As a purveyor and avid consumer of slice-of-life fluff.......... I loved this!!! First of all, the main character is My Kind of Girl, and exactly the kind of character I want to see getting a happy ending. Then, the rest of cast provided so many different kinds of delight—the warm Found Family feeling of a grumpy kind father figure and an adorable little Creature baking actual cinnamon rolls and a prim but secretly dorky girlfriend and and and—so many greats! Even the antagonists were enjoyable, in their way.

Hmmm... for the negative part of my postive-negative-positive sandwich, I think I'd just echo what I've seen in a few other reviews—I could have done with a teensy bit more of the romance. Or I guess, more of the cuteness of it? All we really got was a little bit of lead-up and then a big get-together, but I feel like the romance scenes I like most (shy flirting, a tiny bit of pining) got sort of skipped over. It's not a huge negative! Especially for this story, which seemed like it hit exactly the balance the author intended. Yeah, I might have just had the epilogue cover the main ship being cute and in love, instead of the little righteous vengeance scene that we got.

So this was a perfect little comfort listen (audiobook again! with really nice acting done by the author himself!). I saw other people calling the first chapters slow, but tbh I loved the steady, hopeful mood that came from all that straightforward hard work happening and then paying off. A great story, if you go in with the right expectations! (4.5/5) (P.S.: also this article touches on some other L&L points that I think explain why it resonates so well in post-pandemic life) (P.P.S. now I'm trying to parse out why I liked this book so much more than House in the Cerulean Sea... I think part of it is that the cast felt more respected? Like, it was more than just The Most Special-est Pretty Boy and his Plucky Boyfriend Fix Fantasy Racism)

[ithisatanytime]

Astra King - First Love (Official Video)

 one piece sucks, not the netflix adaption the cartoon is just as bad if not worse than the cartoon, you just have bad taste when it comes to narrative story telling and thats fine. there were no great animes made after 2001 and maybe one or two good ones that honestly you could skip and not really miss out on anything. anime was good for a narrow window of time because kikifying a country is a process and it takes time, for a short window japan had all of this tradition and folklore that resonated with the western spirit and access to technology required to make decent art from that frame of mind. as the years wore on they could still make the cartoons look colorful but it was gutted and soulless. any show that goes on for more than 2 or 3 seasons maximum is gonna be shit with maybe one or two exceptions, dragonball works because it was always for kids! and it had a good message, work hard, be good etc, shows like naruto and one piece act like they are for kids but they are actually for teenagers and adults with very bad taste in narrative stories, and it shows in the final product, dragonball was a power fantasy that served the aim of installing good morals and attitudes in children, naruto, one piece, etc are just pure power fantasies for weak malformed men, in a lot of ways its similar to stranger things but for men where as stranger things served that same function for women, every time eleven used her psychic powers she would like tilt her head down and forward to make her eyes appear dark, and i cringed so hard it literally helped cost me a fucking relationship i just couldnt handle it. if you are a man who likes one piece odds are you are fucking gay and about one bad week away from trooning out, if you are a male who likes naruto the good news is you are just gay. btw i hardly consider dragonball past a certain point “Great” its just good while still having many of the same faults that these terrible modern animes have and i wanted to highlight what distinguishes the two kinds of long running serial animes a litte bit, i think prior to GT akira toryama had some vision, there was something he aimed to achieve and he more or less acheived it, even gt which is TERRIBLE has moments of genuiness sprinkled throughout and id rather watch the entirety of gt twice than a single season of naruto. i dont watch anime because im not a fucking child, i dont care about it tbh, what i do care about is the subculture thats sprung up around it literally decades after anything worth a shit came out of japanese animation, these people are automatons, mainly the men as women liking anime, even bad anime is fine in my opinion weirdly its actually a sign they she sucks less than the average woman but thats a post for another time as this is already getting long, modern anime fans the men mainly, are npcs, without question or exception. if you are a man and you still watch movies and television and you have a vision of a future in which you are not wearing dresses and or sucking cock just stop before its too late, watch some old cowboy movies! im dead serious once you let your attention defecit disorder adjust to the slightly slower pace you will find old cowboy/samurai/noir movies have everything you were looking for in anime and more, with the upside that its not literally going to turn you gay which modern anime will, how many of your anime friends are gay or trans or nonbinary? how many of my friends are any of those things? zero. cowboy movies, samurai movies, noir films, no later than the eighties. all modern anime fans are literally guy, if not openly, in private.

[stekken]

Right now, I'm watching The Boy and the Heron. I'm less than five minutes in.

I'm not a movies person. I'm averse to watching them, and I've speculated why before, but I think any explanations now would block the path for implicit and likely more accurate understanding. I need to step away from my explicit understandings of myself. That's how I've been feeling for the past week or two. "You've been growing upward for long enough now. It's time to grow outward."

That's why I'm pivoting from my frugal spending habits and dropping money on five or so classic video games in a week, plus a controller for fighting games, a genre I've never gotten into before. That's why I just watched the movie Hundreds of Beavers, and a few minutes later started The Boy and the Heron.

I'm a full-time student. I say that, but the semester ended a week ago, and I haven't picked out all my classes for the next semester yet; I'm a little late to the party this time around. I also have a full-time job. I thought with the semester ending, I'd be less tired, but the opposite has been true. When I have school, I kind of need my job. It's a good change of pace, even if it takes up more of time than I'd like for it to. My job is also good in that it's humbling. My education is tied to my ambitions and my expectations for myself. My job is just a job, reasonably dignified but unglamorous. I'm a barista.

Since the semester's ended, I've been more tired. I've been dreading each shift like I didn't before. A feeling returns that I used to have more strongly when I worked in the produce department of a grocery store: "I'm being wasted". I'm an egotist, a compromise-averse lover of art and of thought. I want to give the world what—I believe—only I can give it. Getting exhausted doing something thousands of other people can do, can do better, is humiliating. I want humility, but not that much.

I recently picked up the skill of computer programming. I'm extremely unproductive when not under pressure, so though I'd wanted to learn programming before, I'd always dropped it within a couple days. This last semester, though, I took a course, and it was amazing. It was euphoric and exhilarating and peaceful and right. Whatever kind of executive dysfunction I have has a lot to answer for, cause I should have been doing this my whole life instead of starting three months ago. I started and finished every single one of the weekly assignments during the 24-hour grace period after the official deadline, except for the ones I turned in later than that. The final project, for which I chose a visual novel programmed in Python, I did in four days. I'm really proud of what I did. I feel like I know how to tell a computer what I want it to do now. With that, it seems like a thousand doors have opened at once.

I'm a writer, and I'm a visual artist. I love animation, but I can't animate. I love video games, but I haven't made any. I'm a storyteller, but I seem to have no control over when it's time to tell a story. I need to change that if I want to quit my job. I need to grow outward, and I think I noticed that because it started feeling impossible to grow outward once the semester ended, once my barista work was my only work. I'm not okay with not being allowed to grow outward. I need to play and experiment and learn. I need time to do the work of growing upward, and time also to plant seeds in strange places. I'm not okay with having all my time colonized by predictable, practical endeavors.

But. I need money. So, I need to try and become self-employed. I need to monetize my art without corrupting it. I need to set down my explanations of myself and let myself be a mystery. I need to let new things rise to the surface. But for that, I need freedom in how I use my time, for which I need money. Making money off of play will probably be difficult. I should start trying, though.

I should open a Patreon early, before I start doing anything people care to contribute money to. Early is better. There's no benefit to waiting. Then, maybe it'll all feel more real.

I should also practice being present online. Sharing my thoughts and experiences here will be a start. It might open doors. At the very least, it'll be good writing practice.

And I need to make art more often. Very little of my schoolwork has encouraged me to work on my art, despite that being what I'm going to University for, ostensibly. Only three of my classes so far have had practical benefits: Games and Animation Fundamentals, Modeling and Texturing, and Programming for Digital Artists. There's lots of good stuff ahead of me, but it'll be months before I can get to most of it: scripting for animation, drawing for animation, rigging, animation itself, more modeling, more texturing, storyboarding. Lots of good stuff! But it should be here now. But it's not, and in the meantime I should be making art with the skillset that I have.

My three main assets right now are my writing, my visual art, and my programming. I should focus on projects that marry all three. The obvious first project is a visual novel. I already have a crude one coded in Python, with the PyGame library. I could use a visual novel engine like RenPy, or I could just iron out the kinks in my PyGame VN and make the system more robust and modular. Either way, there's lots of potential, assuming I can actually motivate myself to make good on any of this.

All three of my main skills need improvement. My visual art is mostly character art, and to tell a story, those characters need to have context. Unfortunately, my backgrounds and perspective-drawings are real rough. My programming is a nascent skill, and if I don't keep it up, I suspect it'll rust fast. My writing is too verbose. I love verbosity, but I'm starting to appreciate brevity. That's the direction I need to grow in. It's fortunate that I'm starting to aesthetically appreciate concise prose, because it's much more practical, and practical is what I need right now.

I should do my growing publicly. I should be openly imperfect and open to commentary. It's a hard thing to convince myself to do. I've told myself before that I've finally made that choice, only to not follow through. I hope this won't be one of those times. I hope I really start giving others what I have to give.

Do I go back to watching The Boy and the Heron now? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I want to do. It's three in the morning. Going to bed seems like the wrong answer, though.

[quartings]

Announcements and resolutions for 2024!

For all followers of this blog, here are some art, animations, and more to expect for the coming year!

Firstly, I hope I posted enough Pokemon Adventures content here in 2023. Despite promising a lot last year, the big delay before the first SV chapter and the even longer delay until we finally saw Scarlet really put a lot of my planned fanart on hold. Hopefully I’ll be able to post even more Pokespe stuff this year now that ORAS will finally be starting in English, finishing in Japanese, and SV continues! And depending on what the Pokemon games do next, I may have even more Pokemon stuff to post!

To make it up to you all, I recently released an Indigo Disk animated short last week, and will be releasing another animation really soon with Pokemon Adventures characters! Definitely check them out, I worked really hard on them and I hope you like them!

I don’t know how many shows of 2024 I’m excited for- the only thing on the horizon is the Pseudo Harem anime, so maybe I’ll do fanart of that? There’s some other smaller series I may watch but nothing as major. Also, Creature Commandos is set to launch in late 2024 so hopefully that’s a good source of artistic inspiration, too!

Sadly, since my original animated short film Wishful Thinking is still at film festival judging, I can’t post it yet. But as mentioned last year, I will now start working on a teaser and promo material for it to post 100% before the year ends!

As for New Years resolutions, here’s some stuff I want to get done before the end of 2024:

Voice in at least 2 new projects for my Youtube channel, more if possible.

Collaborate with at least one new VA friend on one of those projects.

As I continue trying to navigate working in the animation industry to become an animated series showrunner, I appreciate all your support here! And also your patience with any delays as I try to become a proper working adult, haha.

For a final project- this isn’t just a rough idea, but I’m thinking of finally taking my Eris series to a professional level! I’m just stuck deciding if it should be-

A comic book that I try to officially publish

A webtoon that I then try to convert to other mediums if it becomes popular

A series of animated shorts

If any of you have any suggestions on what I should do, please let me know! I know most of my audience would prefer if I did more Pokemon animations (and trust me, I still will!) but I also want to make a living- and preferably off my OC stuff, too!

Conversely, I could slow down on animations and instead do Improvemonth 2, where I do one solid month of training my art to improve it and post the results here, so my future comics and animations can be even better! Here’s the link to my last one, and if you think I should go for it again, let me know!

I will say though, I think 2025 will be a bigger year than 2024- Superman Legacy releases then, I can finally post Wishful Thinking around then, we’ll be closer to more big game releases, and it’ll be the 10th anniversary of this blog!

And finally, if you’re a fan of any of my art or series (especially any of my OC stuff) this is your chance to let me know what you want to see more of! No guarantee that I’ll do it, but it’s always good hearing more from you!

[apollostears]

COLLEGE CONFESSIONS [ jjk ]

↬︎ anime: jujutsu kaisen

↬︎ featuring: nanami kento, suguru geto, fushiguro toji, choso kamo, & satoru gojo

↬︎ warning(s): swearing, college!au, all characters are 18+, mentions of blood

PLOT. in new girl style, you become roommates with five men from your university.

ADVISORY. reader is black and female, unless stated otherwise.

college series

➟︎ meeting the boys was simultaneously the best, and worst, thing that could ever happen to you.

➟︎ on some new girl shit, you ended up rooming with them bc rent was cheap and it was close to campus.

➟︎ nanami, choso, toji, geto, & gojo all lived in this huge penthouse a few blocks down from university (shoutout to them niggas having money). it was two penthouses put into one and it was home to some of the biggest hoes you had ever met.

➟︎ it’s complete chaos.

➟︎ you share a bathroom with toji, whose nonexistent most of the time bc he’s out doin illegal shit (underground fighting) or fuckin random girls.

➟︎ none of them are completely messy, but there has been several times where you have tripped over shoes and slipped on socks because of them.

➟︎ it’s very rare that all of you are in the house at the same time other than to sleep.

➟︎ choso takes you to campus with him since he goes the same time you go. nanami is the one that’ll take you home. or geto. but they will not allow you to ride public transportation.

➟︎ partially because they’re bougie and also because they know how unsafe it is alone on campus.

➟︎ toji owns a small tattoo and piercing shop that choso and geto work at when they aren’t doing internships.

➟︎ besides geto and nanami, nobody cooks. everyone uses the ninja blender though and the air fryer.

➟︎ sometimes, on wash days, you guys will combine shirts and pants to save time but wash everything else separately. everyone but gojo is allowed to wash bc he will fuck up y’all’s clothes.

➟︎ there is a weekend out of every month where you guys just do whatever you want to do. either together or alone.

➟︎ it usually ends up with geto cooking sunday breakfast and all of you watching some movie. maybe even going to a frat party or watching toji fight.

➟︎ they’ve come to like you more than they thought they would. honestly didn’t plan on interacting with you but you grew on them. now they’re your unofficial, official, sugar daddies without the sugar. (although…😉)

➟︎ pls don’t ever buy anything with your own money and let them catch you. they will reimburse you plus interest, for no reason.

➟︎ honestly, you have yet to figure out why they even spoil you the way they do.

➟︎ nanami is a business major with toji. choso is an art major with a focus in architecture and history. gojo is pre-law and geto is a bioengineering major for healthcare services.

➟︎ toji scared the shit out of you at first, all broody and shit. but y’all really bonded after he came back late from a particularly brutal fight and you were up finishing an assignment when you saw him. he looked like he could barely stand and after that, y’all just grew closer.

➟︎ you and gojo have a strong love-hate relationship because how can someone so smart be so dumb?? has gotten you caught up several times.

➟︎ nanami helps you study and it’s so nice because you don’t even ask most of the time, but he’ll hit you up and ask if you have anything you need help with.

➟︎ geto practices his sketches on you all the time to see how it will look.

➟︎ choso and you will use his architecture skills to draw up your dream home 😭. he’s went through ten sketches already.

➟︎ you hang out at the tattoo shop anytime you’re free. sometimes you’ll go there after classes and just do homework until someone comes to the front desk needing help.

➟︎ you cannot play any games with any of these niggas because they ALL CHEAT!

➟︎ choso almost got to scrapping with gojo over a game of chutes and ladders.

➟︎ i feel like nanami likes reading and if you like reading, you guys have your own little book club.

➟︎ gojo takes you on shopping sprees. but it’s literally because he likes going out and drags you with him cause no one else will go.

➟︎ fairytale shit aside…living with these niggas is like fighting demons.

➟︎ nanami got a headache every damn hour bc of gojo so then he snappy like denzel in fuckin training day.

➟︎ toji moody af and releases that anger by having relations almost every night with a new bitch. you can never get sleep and almost always end up sleeping in choso’s room.

➟︎ geto has such a slick mouth, he be causing riots at five am cause he called choso’s mama a hoe. choso don’t play about his mama.

➟︎ gojo will have girls over for the night but never kick them out. so then y’all wakin up to some rando, wearing geto’s shirt that gojo stole and eating nanami’s meal prepped breakfast.

➟︎ you silently escort her out before she witnesses a murder.

➟︎ and ALL five of them purposefully bother you at all hours of the day.

➟︎ talkin to a man? oh, not on geto’s watch. now your ‘boyfriend’ shows up to take you home while threatening the guy you were talking to.

➟︎ you in the shower with the door unlocked again? toji’s coming in to take a shit and gojo’s going to turn the lights off and throw some rubber animal in the shower with you.

➟︎ they both, rightfully so, get they ass beat by you and nanami.

➟︎ thinking about going grocery shopping for the apartment? you better pray to god you leave before them otherwise they will try to tag along and end up adding more shit than necessary, into the cart. y’all once had an $800 grocery bill.

➟︎ gojo stay wearing yo wigs. you don’t complain much bc he’s the one that buys them, and he buys the good kind, but if you see him saying ‘stiff where?’ in the mirror ONE MORE TIME!

➟︎ living with them is a nightmare dressed like a daydream literally.

↬︎ join the taglist: @rubinocore @nyxeclipse @sweeneyblue1 @knjkitten@namjoonswifeyy @sunrayyellowhalo @pimpnameyannie @brownmochi

[un-pearable]

Hi! Uh, I want to get into Sonic. Any shows/games you would reccomend starting with? An order? Also!! What's your favorite iteration of sonic (if you have one)

i think this might be THE question every sonic fan is dying to be asked. that is to say, hell yeah it would be my pleasure to make some recommendations >:] 

best things to try as a very first introduction to the hedgehog and friends (that are still relatively bitesized or accessible): 

the official animations for sonic mania, team sonic racing, chao in space, sonic colors, and most recently sonic frontiers. personal favorites are chao in space bc its adorable and frontiers for… obvious (knuckles) reasons (it’s about knuckles). these are short and sweet and absolutely adorable so they’re always some of the first things i recommend :] check ‘em out if you can - you won’t regret it. 

on that topic, Sonic Frontiers is a solid place to start with the games! it’s the most recent release so there’s currently a demo available on switch and it’s also on sale on steam right now (until Feb 13th!). few of the games directly lead into each other so picking specific games to start with is more down to personal taste, i’ll go into more detail if you’d like but for an introduction to the series? frontiers has been very well received and many consider it a return to form after the last few games, so it’s a good place to pick up the series! EDIT: I FORGOT ABOUT GENERATIONS. sonic generations is basically a Best-Of compilation of sonic’s most well known stages and it’s also perfect for a first time player. it was MY first game. how on earth did i forget about it. anyway it’s also on steam and it kicks ass!!!

alternately, much of the franchise was codified in the adventure games, so if you prefer starting at the beginning, they’re big recommendations as well! both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 are on steam and MANY playthroughs are online. SA2 was also the first of the sonic fandubs, so if you’ve seen any of those memes that’s where they’re from. 

also, if you’re into zelda games you’ll probably love frontiers. but if you prefer 2D/pixel art games, Sonic Origins just came out last summer and contains rereleases of the first four sonic games and Mania is always a fun option! alternately, try here for a taste of sonic 2 :] 

comics!! comics!!!!! the IDW Sonic The Hedgehog comics are killing it lately and double as canon and ridiculously fun. the first arc is issues 1-12 and if that won’t sell you on this funky little guy, well, there’s a lot more options too! you can find the IDW run here - but support your local comic shop if you can! 

for a little more bite-sized try the recent miniseries scrapnik island! it’s standalone from the main storyline and considering you’re a ninjago fan i think you’ll enjoy a fun story about morally complex robots :D 

the Archie series is amazing at times and so bad it’s funny at others - but what isn’t? while i am a HUGE fan it does require quite a bit of time and investment. other recommendations from the 300 issue+ legacy of sonic comics are available on request (i do not know how to shut up <3) 

tv shows!! Sonic Prime just released on Netflix and it slaps. not the most traditional sonic but it’s fun as hell and ongoing - we’re only ⅓ into the first season and there’s at least two guaranteed. the animation is astounding and it’s coincidentally produced by wildbrain just like current ninjago. i edited one of it’s kickass fight scenes here 

this is almost certainly far more than you need but i love talking about this series so thanks for humoring me :] i hope you enjoy them!! hmmm… they’ve all got their own appeal to me but lately i’ve been watching a lot of playthroughs while drawing (and i eagerly await the frontiers dlc so i have an excuse to replay it) and i think atm game sonic’s my favorite! the comics are delightful and the shows always have their own twists but i love good ‘ol game sonic… the others are more than just facets of his character and have their own great stories, but there’s something special about the original. this message brought to you by how absolutely astounding his characterization is in Sonic Unleashed. we missed you big guy. hope you have fun!!