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neoflect · 3 days

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sharing some of my disorganized jojo musical thoughts now that ive had a week to sit on it and ive rewatched it several times over. i intended to wait to publish something like this until a subtitled version was available, but im not seeing any indication that thats happening any time soon so for now youll have to deal with my loose interpretations from my extremely rudimentary and rusty japanese… so take what i have to say about the finer points of characterization with a grain of salt. gratuitous spoilers below obviously, both for the original source material and the changes made in the stage production

my feelings are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. of course there are things i can criticize or that i would have personally done differently but oh man… i have literally not thought about anything besides this fucking show for a week. im 100% confident in saying this is a better adaptation of the source material than the tv anime. sorry to the davidpro staff, i respect their hard work and their love for jojo and their dedication to what is by any metric a pretty difficult property to adapt off of the page, but i dont know if i can ever forgive them for leaving half of the first episode’s storyboard on the cutting room floor in order to fit a standard half-hour tv slot, especially considering that what they cut is some of the really crucial character-building stuff. happily those scenes are not only reproduced in the stage version, some of them are expanded upon!

with the quick disclaimer that i’ve only managed to get my hands on the final 4/14 performance with shotaro arisawa and yoshihisa higashiyama, from what i’ve seen the casting is perfect. i’m sure there’s a rip of the 4/13 performance somewhere (i’ve seen clips) but i haven’t been able to find one… every single performer knocks it out of the fucking park, the cast chemistry is incredible and even the minor characters are loaded with charisma. and mamoru miyano… my god… mamoru miyano i owe you an apology. i was not familiar with your game. of course hes been killing it for decades at this point but i had soured on him a little bit recently because i felt like he was overcast in everything and i just didnt connect with his dnt reinhard at all, so when the casting was initially announced back in august i was underwhelmed, and of course my standards for the dio role in particular were astronomically high… i’ll go more into detail later in the post because i have so so many things to say about dio’s characterization here but mamoru miyano’s performance is like, life-changing. i had impossible expectations and he exceeded them.

sorry if im gushing. i am a hater by nature. its unusual for me to be so thoroughly pleased with something. im not even a musical theater guy. these are strange new feelings for me.

just to balance things out i’ll talk about a couple of the things that didn’t really work for me: first of all, the music is just ok. my initial draft of this post called the music “bad” but three additional viewings later i have warmed up to some of the songs. i don’t know if this is a shortcoming by dove attia as the composer or if it’s just me, as i said i’m not a musical guy and a lot of the genre conventions of musical theatre are not really the things i look for in music that i enjoy, but like… even at their worst they are serviceable. nothing here is sonically unpleasant to me. high points are “resolve of the ripple” (zeppeli’s hamon training song, a jazzy swing number - it’s simply catchy and fun to listen to) and the closer “phantom blood” (a sweeping ballad that reprises the earlier “light and darkness”/”golden spirit” leitmotifs into an epic duet between jonathan and dio as they join hands and walk off into the darkness together… made me cry! i wont lie! on every single one of my numerous viewings this one got me misty eyed!)

wait i forgot this is supposed to be the part where i’m being critical. ok my most loathed song in the musical is “dio’s world”. sorry dio nation. it doesn’t really work for me. i think this might be a case of my standards/expectations being too impossibly high because it’s not even really the worst song in the whole thing. and of course miyano eats it up so it’s not really his fault. i just find it kind of underwhelming… i find the melody a little grating, it’s kind of just a generic rock number, it’s just missing a particular je ne sais quoi…. the essence of dio isn’t there… lyrically though i am obsessed with the premise of dio recruiting his minions by selling himself as a kind of social revolutionary who is upending and inverting the brutal hierarchy of post-industrial victorian society with zombie blood magic. you win some you lose some.

the second sticking point for me is the costumes. they’re perfectly serviceable… adequate… but i mean when it comes to jojo “serviceable” and “adequate” costume design obviously falls well below what’s expected, right? a lot of the outfits have kind of a boxy, almost flat-looking kind of unflattering fit on the actors, which if i wanted to be generous i could attribute to the challenge of bridging the gap between these frail slender musical theater twinks and the two-meter-tall 250lb roided-out beefcakes theyre meant to be embodying. (bearing this discrepancy in mind a lot of the insane martial arts stuff in the second act doesn’t really land with the oomph that it should, but i also understand logistically why this kind of casting is not practical, and all things considered i think shotaro arisawa does a really incredible job of embodying jonathan joestar even though he kind of looks like i could snap him in half over my knee like a twig. he’s very cute. so i’m not mad about it.) of course, again, logistically, i understand that in a stage musical production, where actors only have minutes to complete costume changes, some sacrifices have to be made to the creative vision in the name of practicality. nevertheless this is jojos bizarre adventure!! i want to see some fucking baubles!!!!!!

which is all to say that… after carefully considering it for some weeks… i still have extremely mixed feelings about dio’s grink ass feather bathrobe look. it’s not that i dont think its something he could wear (the concept of dio lounging around in his gothic vampire palace doing re-animator style body horror experiments on the local wildlife in this “officer i have no idea what happened to my husband”-ass nightgown is nothing short of hysterical to me) but then he wears it into combat and i felt a little disappointed… it has the same unflattering fit issue as the other outfits in the show, and it is just such an un-araki-like design… where are the gaudy color combinations? the bizarre geometric patterns? the tease of an exposed boob/thigh/midriff? erina gets a stage-original dress design that i have fewer issues with because the excessive pleats and ruffles have more of an araki-esque sensibility, but every time i look at dio’s robe it feels like there’s something missing. i’m going to choose to be nice about it because it’s not at all a deal breaker and, again, mamoru miyano devours the look. it’s fine. it’s always fun to have a new dio outfit. if anything, the fact that the blu-rays are being marketed as “2024 cast version” gives me hope for the possibility of a future production with a new vision for the costume design. (although the fact that this was such a difficult production - with stunts and pyrotechnics and moving setpieces - that its entire first week was cancelled indicates to me that the prospects for a future production from a different company are impossibly slim. i guess there’s always hope?)

in terms of the writing and the changes that were made from the original narrative, honestly i don’t really have an issue with anything that was cut. sorry if there are any diehard stans of Poco’s Unnamed Sister out there who are steamed that their favorite minor late phantom blood character got the axe, i kind of understand how you feel because i’ve been malding over david pro cutting the Danny Lore for eleven years, but i think it was the right choice and the story flows so much better. the real juicy meat at the core of phantom blood as a narrative and the thing that brings it head and shoulders above so much of the rest of jjba is the character-driven drama - that deliciously pulpy victorian gothic family tragedy - and the relationship between jonathan and dio. the musical beefs up the character drama and slims down the action-driven second half by trimming out the extraneous battles. the only real downside i see to this is that the absence of tompetty and his prophecy makes zeppeli’s arc and death feel INSANELY abrupt, but tbf that’s not a deal breaker for me. sorry zeppeli. you were born to die.

okay. okay. i think 1500 words into the post is enough fucking around so let’s talk about the real reason why you and i both know we’re here

musical dio is SO fucking sad. he’s positively wretched, you guys. he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone and forced to eat cement when he was six. he cries even more than he does in the source material and even when he’s not crying he frequently delivers his lines as though he is moments away from bursting into tears. back when the musical first opened i was snooping on the reactions on jpn twitter and one commenter said they could see miyano’s tears and snot from the nosebleeds even without opera glasses, a remark i initially assumed was hyperbole but that i now think probably was not. araki’s dio is certainly tortured and a deeply pathetic crybaby beneath all the cruelty and posturing, but changes in the musical and miyano’s embodiment of the character bring this pathos to the fore. he is literally haunted: dario’s ghost lingers, a manifestation of all of dio’s traumas and insecurities that emerges from the recesses of his memory to taunt him with the reminder that he will always be his father’s son, all the way up until the very minute that jonathan breaks down the door to his vampire lair. i am OBSESSED with this - not only for the obvious reason that i delight in dio’s suffering personally but also because kong kuwata is a delight and he fucking kills it every time. also lends itself to a category 10 leitmotif moment at the top of the second act when dio emerges from the charred ruins of the joestar estate singing dario’s theme and calling out to jonathan - if i had to pinpoint this is probably the moment when this musical stuck for me as the Real Deal. they Get It.

the first solo number in the show is dio’s disney princess I Want song (amazingly, simply titled “dio”) where he weeps for his late mother and his wretched lot in life, and then - in a creative decision that made me clap my hands and hoot and holler at my screen in real life - there is a reprise of this number (delivered, naturally, through tears) when dio is almost arrested for murder and decides to become a vampire instead. so there’s this amazing hopeful uplifting inspirational orchestral music accompanying the onstage action of dio ruthlessly slaying jonathan’s dad and then getting pumped full of lead by a bunch of cops. it is brilliant. 10/10 no notes. it’s moments like this that i think really sell the “softening” of dio in the stage version for me, even though i am historically Not A Fan of fanworks that take a similar angle - like, yes, he is sad, but specifically he is narcissistically obsessed with the spectacle of his own suffering, he is boiling over with bitterness and rage for everyone around him who (by his own estimation) could never hope to have suffered as much as he has. this sensitivity and self-pity he wallows in are not expressions of a guilty conscience or a desire to change - they’re entirely the opposite - every cruel and monstrous deed dio commits is always justified to himself because he is simply the saddest little boy who has ever existed. he has been done wrong by the world and so there is no limit to the depravity he may reasonably respond with. i’ve seen several commenters describe this as a drastically different interpretation of the character from araki’s dio (and someone told me on twitter that mamoru miyano himself has also said this, but i cba to go digging for an actual source so take it with a grain of salt?), but i… dont think thats the case! dio’s obsession with his own weakness and his self-perception as the eternal underdog (as compared to jonathan) are certainly more exaggerated in miyano’s performance, but i don’t think this is an angle to the character that’s been manufactured out of whole cloth. the genre conventions of the stage musical force the melodrama up to eleven and dio’s incredibly repressed angst is the most rich vein to mine for that. hair-trigger sadist dio is still here, it’s the same guy, he’s still killing people mercilessly, you’re just getting to see him sing a big ballad about his feelings instead of confining those to an internal monologue.

if anything, the exaggeration of dio’s pathetic/cowardly/crybaby traits combined with his megalomaniacal aspirations and bottomless well of cruelty is just right. it’s perfect. fucking around, finding out, and then trying to weasel his way out of the consequences with crocodile tears just so you don’t see him drawing his knife to cut you clean open… yeah. thats the stuff. thats my one true blorbo. sad to say i will love him for ten thousand years.

i think that might be all i have to say… or at least all i feel like saying here… most likely ill come back and edit this post later. i certainly have some additional thoughts and some more esoteric/controversial takes but they’re not suited for a public blog. real ones will understand. im keeping my eyes peeled for somebody to translate this thing but to be frank i am kind of enjoying this little corner of fandom as it is right now: just the asians and the true hardcore phantom blood phreaks. i have not had this much fun in jojo fandom in almost a fucking decade. as soon as somebody publishes an english version my timelines going to get flooded with all the most deeply annoying “kono dio da” “speedwagon waifu” reddit guys and 15 year olds and my suffering will proceed. unfortunately this is my lot in life and i am doomed to be here forever because dio put a worm in my brain

#⚰️#jjba tag for blacklisting purposes but i dont want this in the main tag

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sugar-coat-it · 6 hours

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Body piercer! Matty part three

Part 1, Part 2

I missed writing for this man so much my god he is my everything. If you haven’t read the other parts, go ahead and do that first for context perhaps!

Fem! Reader

Contains: Mutual pining, cutie newly established relationship, mention of marijuana, proud concert bf Matty, him being protective of girlie at the show, exhibitionism (light petting in the crowd), rough quickie (unprotected), public sex (bathroom), fingering and fucking on the counter, Matty puts his hand over her mouth, mirror sex, choking (with jewelry)

WC: ~6.3k

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PART THREE- Your new boyfriend takes you to a punk show, ending with a quickie in the venue bathroom

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Both you and Matty knew in your hearts that this wasn’t just a fling. Flings didn’t stay up for endless hours on the phone, knowing damn well that you both had work the next morning. Flings also didn’t think about each other for every waking minute, always sending each other sentimental messages when things reminded them of each other. And, they certainly don’t touch you the way Matty touches you: like he’s like he’s been starved of you his entire life. He’d frankly been losing his mind, constantly daydreaming at work as he stared at the Polaroid of the two of you he kept at the front desk, knowing he couldn’t stand not calling you his girlfriend much longer. Not after the past couple of weeks you’d been seeing each other had been some of the best of his life. He was so antsy over the fact that he couldn’t actually call you his that it was eating him alive, where else would he ever find someone as perfect for him as you? His work friends teased him endlessly for being so head over his platform boot heels, telling him how he needed to lock you down as soon as possible. He endearingly calls you his “favorite client”, but you’ve quickly become his favorite everything (“No. You don’t even get it, mate,” he’d said, rambling on to some poor guy whose ears he was piercing, “she's like… the light of my life, really”). But, considering that you couldn’t close your eyes without picturing his pretty brown irises staring back at you, his eyes crinkling at the edges with all his twinkling, wild mirth, you weren’t faring much better.

Just as you’d hoped from that first night together, his sleepy eyes were in fact now a constant in your life. He asked you to be his girlfriend after taking you back to the same cafe where you’d had your blind date. Needless to say, it was an enthusiastic yes on your part, and your life has been so much brighter since, you can hardly imagine your life without all of his ruckus. Your days with him are long and lazy, and the nights are even longer, often spent wrapped up in his sheets or giggling while curled up on his couch after a smoke session.

You’ve learned a lot about Matty in the time you’ve been together. Like his tendency to leave things in your flat, his ungodly marijuana tolerance levels, and his love for his puppy Mayhem. You’ve also found that he takes his music very seriously. Listening to music is like a ritual to him, one that he refuses to partake in with “trashy” music. You call it snobbery, he calls it having good taste, and lately, he’s been trying to share that taste with you. He’s almost been subtly brainwashing you into getting into them, playing their songs in his car, burning some of their tracks on his CD mixtapes for you (always scrawled with cute Sharpie doodles and bad handwriting), humming the melodies of his favorite songs to you while cuddling. Honestly, you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t working, you’ve found yourself adding his music to your playlists, combining your styles much like how the mohawked man has slowly rooted his way into every corner of your life.

So of course, words couldn’t describe how thrilled he was when you agreed to see one of his favorite bands play at a punk rock show. He’d approached you with the idea tentatively, explaining that it was fine if you didn’t want to go, he’d just take one of his mates from work if so. The way his face lit up when you said yes, your heart could have burst as you watched his eyes twinkle with pure joy. Then, of course, he leaned in and kissed every inch of your face ignoring your giggles and protests of him tickling you while he declared how much you were going to love it.

When the day of the show arrived, you kept your outfit simple: baggy, ripped jeans, a white tank top, a band hoodie, and your studded belt you recovered from the depths of your closet, figuring you’d at least blend in with the grungier crowd that way. You put on one last thing to complete the look, hooking Matty’s chunky, silver chain (that of course, he’d left on your dresser) around your neck. You smile to yourself as you tuck it under your clothes, liking the feel of having him close to your heart like this. When did you become such a sap?

Meanwhile, Matty was pacing around your flat, making sure he had everything he needed and that you’d get there in time for doors. His reasoning for being punctual was much less about him than it was for you, he wanted you to fully experience being close to the stage because he knows how much you like to take pictures at concerts, your constantly full phone storage being a telltale sign of that. He was going full-on concert boyfriend mode, also keeping your lipstick and your wallet in his little hip pouch so you wouldn’t have to worry about carrying anything but your phone. He’d clearly thought this through quite a lot, he’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

A sudden kiss to his cheek quiets the hum of his overactive mind when you approach him, his furrowed brows sloping to a soft look of adoration as he insists on you standing still so he can take a good look at your outfit. He holds his fingers up in front of him in the shape of a square, squinting one eye closed like he’s framing you for a memory. Sure, the relationship was shiny and new, but something about the way he looked at you told you this wasn’t going to dull with time’s cruel hands, not any time soon at least.

“Ohh, yeah. Very punk rock, baby,” he smiles slyly, chuckling as you roll your eyes.

“Hardly! I don’t exactly have the wardrobe for this.”

“Shh, nonsense. You’re like a regular Joan Jett, babe. But hotter.”

“But hotter? Wow,” you laugh, now glancing down at the jewelry adorning his hands and wrists, “I like your bracelet.”

Matty cringes, sucking a breath through his teeth while looking up towards the ceiling. He recalls just how he’d obtained said bracelet as a teenager with something to prove. He was never a bad kid, just a highly restless one who got bored too easily. Besides, he never got in any real trouble since his parents would have strung him up by his toes otherwise.

“Erm, thanks. I think I nicked it when I was a teen.”

“You were a delinquent!?” you exclaim, causing Matty’s loud laughter to ring through the apartment.

“That’s a strong term, innit? Let’s call it… misguided… and stupid. Now c’mon, out the door, miss.”

You shake your head playfully as he shoos you out of the flat, imagining a younger version of your boyfriend getting into all sorts of mischief. You can almost perfectly picture his toothy, boyish grin as he runs around the streets of his hometown with his mates by his side, freckle-faced and carefree, his curls in an unruly mop on his head. You wonder if you would have gotten along with him in his younger, wilder days. An odd part of you hopes he still would have liked you.

“Why do you still have it?” you ask as you start your walk to the train together. “What can I say? I’m unbelievably sentimental.”

The train ride is quiet, you share his wireless earbuds and listen to music side by side. The deal was that the queue of songs switched back and forth, you got to play one song, then him. He leans his head against your shoulder, the muss of hair atop the shaved sides of his head grazing your neck. He almost falls asleep as you start to scratch the top of his head. But, inevitably, all of his energy comes rushing back to him when the train comes to a halt. Immediately, he’s grabbing your hand to bound down the street to the venue, shouting about how good of a spot you’re going to get.

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Once inside, at a glance, you don’t exactly fit in here. A sort of insecurity festers in you as you eye some of the girls dressed in spikes and leather, they looked like they belonged here, and so did your boyfriend. But, you try to shake it off nonetheless, even if you didn’t feel nearly as cool as you wanted to. This place was like the high council of people who only wear clothes with tears in them.

Matty stands close behind you as you pack in with the rest of the grungy-looking crowd. His hands are on your hips as he glances around, making sure that you have enough space to stand comfortably. He knows how these shows can get, and he’s made it his personal mission to make sure no one ruins the experience for you. He shoots a look at any guy who tries to stand too close to you, the coldness of his stare sending them inching away from your personal space with cowardice. In an instant, the mean look is wiped off his face as he glances down at you, seeing how happy you look to be there with him. He leans down, the cool metal of his chain grazing your neck as he speaks near your ear, just loud enough so you can hear him over the buzz of chatter throughout the venue.

“Can you see alright?” he asks, giving your hips a little squeeze.

You nod with a smile, having a fairly clear view of the stage, you’re only about three rows back thanks to Matty’s punctuality. You tilt your head, grasping the necklace around his neck gently before pulling him down further so you can kiss his cheek. A grin breaks out on your boyfriend’s face, he can’t help but chuckle at your little move, he loves it when you get bold with him. His lips brush against your ear as he murmurs “little minx” before standing back up to his full height.

Matty talks over the pre-show music as he tells you a bit of background about the bands playing tonight, prattling on about who plays what and what makes them so cool. You listen to him with an enamored look plastered on your face, nodding along even when you have no clue what he’s talking about, but what else is new? It only makes you adore him more with every detail rattled off from the depths of his mind.

“... and this one here I don’t know shit about, to be honest. I reckon they’re probably fine though,” he shrugs, showing you the lineup on his phone.

You squint at the screen, tapping your nail against one of the names you recognize because of him. You blink up at him prettily, knowing he’s going to get a kick out of what you say next.

“This is the one with the guy who plays the drums with two pedals, right?” you recall, tilting your head at him coyly, knowing damn well that you’re laying it on thick.

“Yes!! Yes, exactly,” he beams, his eyes instantly lighting up before he presses an enthusiastic kiss to your temple, “That’s my fuckin’ girl. The coolest girlfriend.”

Soon, the show begins, and Matty lets out an excited whoop as the first band makes their entrance, the one he’d bought the tickets for in the first place. He lets go of your hips, taking a small step back to give you the room to dance if you want to. He’s so considerate of you, it makes a glowing sort of warmth swell in your chest. You glance back at him and he gives you two thumbs up, his face scrunching up with a grin that’s so earnestly Matty, you have to resist the urge to just grab him and kiss him till your lips are raw right in the middle of the crowd. Not to mention how fucking good he looks tonight, his tank top allowing his tattooed arms to be on full display, and it should be illegal how tightly those black leather pants clung to his legs.

Your attention turns back to the stage as the first notes ring through the small venue, grungy guitar chords echoing off of the walls. Nothing gives you the same feeling as live music does, the pure thrill it makes rush through you is unmatched (sorry, Matty). The music is harsh, it grates on your ears, but in the best way possible. It’s invigorating, fucking electrifying, it’s thrumming in the hollow of your chest. You feel alive. Matty leans over to see it all happen from just a step away, watching the stage lights reflect in your eyes. He hadn’t looked at the band once, this was far more mesmerizing than anything that could be happening up there. You’ve completely captured his attention, and when you start bobbing your head to the beat and singing along to the chorus, Matty almost drops to one knee right then and there. He’s already mentally noted that this song will in fact be played at your wedding reception.

As the set goes on, his eyes stay on you for the majority of the time, he’s just so taken by watching you have this much fun hearing his music, which is now your music too. He’s simply beaming with pride. Every time you look back at him with that thrilled look on your face while you’re moving to the rhythm only solidifies to him that you’re his absolute dream girl. And of course, he’s having the time of his life too. Matty mouthes along to all of the words, nodding his head in a way that makes his quaffed mohawk bounce with his movements. And, shit, it’s hot in the crowd, you can feel the heat radiating off of the bodies moving around you. The hoodie you brought may have been an oversight, you can practically feel your mascara melting off of your lashes.

The show goes on, and when the moshing in the middle of the crowd gets increasingly rowdy, one man gets shoved and sent hurtling past the bodies between you and the mosh pit. You quickly hold your hands out to brace for the impact, knowing this can’t end well as you prepare to meet your leather-jacketed doom. The man is visibly very intoxicated and he would have stumbled straight into your body from the momentum if Matty’s hands hadn’t shot out to block him, catching him by his shoulders.

“Oi! Watch where you’re fuckin’ going, fuck’s sake,” Matty spits, sending him back toward the pit with a light push.

Now, had Matty done his fair share of moshing and getting absolutely catapulted into other people at breakneck velocity? Yes. It’s not even entirely the guy’s fault that he almost crashed into you, he was pretty drunk and didn’t have his wits or his balance about him, but in Matty’s mind, he might as well have tried to tackle you to the ground WWE style.

“I could have caught him!” you protest over the music, laughing at the bitter look on your boyfriend's face.

Matty raises an eyebrow at you and shakes his head with an amused smile, but doesn’t argue. Maybe you could have, but he wasn’t about to let some sloshed idiot break his girlfriend's back because that’s his job, dammit.

The band’s set is finished with a bang, the final chords echoing in your ears as you try to catch your breath from moving almost nonstop, your heart pounding against your ribs. You turn around to face Matty with a giant grin plastered on your face, letting out a breathless, excited laugh. He just chuckles, eyeing the strands of hair sticking to your face from the sheen of sweat, your smudged makeup rimming your wide eyes. He’s not in much better shape, his tank top is clinging to his body like a second skin. By this point, your hoodie feels like it has its own climate, and you’re dying to peel it off.

“Fun?” he asks, as you start to lift the fabric over your head.

“Oh my god, yeah,” you breathe, your voice muffled by the hoodie.

“I-”

His next words die in his throat as his eyes immediately snap to your chest, his breath catching as he eyes the clear outline of your nipple piercings through your drenched, white tank top and- was that one of his chains around your neck? He feels a stir in his tight leather pants as his mouth slightly drops, he can’t remember ever being so instantly and completely turned on. Heat ripples through his body, climbing up to his face as he shamelessly stares at your tits. Not only were you showing off his skillful work, but your pretty neck was adorned with the chain he’d forgotten all about at your place. It might even look better on you than it does on him.

You’re tying your hoodie around your waist when you catch the look on his face, your brows knitting together with confusion till you follow his gaze and find your piercings proudly displayed through your shirt. As the realization dawns on you, you look up at your boyfriend with a coy smile. Matty shudders, lust crowding his mind as he struggles to come up with a coherent thought, one that isn’t wildly pornographic. He can actually feel his hands tense with the urge to grasp, to lay claim to you with his fingertips. You simply look up at him through your lashes, watching him short-circuit right before your eyes.

Before he has the chance to say or do anything, the next band comes onto the stage, the crowd roaring to life a second time. You give him a knowing look before turning back around to face the direction of the music. Matty swallows hard, raking a hand through his mohawk like he’s grappling with demons… and losing. The music is nothing more than a pulsing beat in his skull, his attention is fully on the back of your head. He begins to inch forward to you, his hands finding a home on your hips while you vibe to the beat. He brings your hips back against him, feeling your movements stutter as the protrusion in his trousers presses into your ass as if to say “Feel what you did to me?”. You get the message loud and clear, draping your weight against him, your head lolling back against his shoulder as you both rock to the beat of the drums, sweaty skin to sweaty skin. Matty’s hands begin to wander, mapping over the damp fabric of your tank top, up your stomach, over your ribs till- oh. You gasp, the stage lights strobing under your closed eyes as he squeezes your tits through your top. Matty can distinctly feel the barbells through the fabric, it drives him fucking wild. Your lips part as you melt into him like honey, your skin feels like it’s on fire as the music blares through the venue. Your stomach swoops when he dares to flick the piercings with his fingertips, danger humming in your veins as he gets bolder, as if you’re not surrounded by a sea of people. Your eyes snap open, you quickly glance around to find that everyone’s far too enthralled with the show to notice, not that Matty would give a shit if they did. No one can hear the way you whimper when he pinches your nipples. You stare down at the large hands that possessively grope your breasts, feeling a throb resound between your thighs.

“Matty, you said this was the band you don’t know, right?” you call to him, your voice uneven and unnaturally high-pitched.

His heavily lidded eyes look almost black with the way they darken as he reads between the lines. Even if it was one of the bands he liked, he’s pretty sure absolutely nothing could stop him from doing what comes next, not when his dick is this hard, and you’ve teased him this salaciously. Wordlessly, Matty lets go of your chest and grabs your hand, leading you through the sea of bodies towards the exit. He moves fast, the urgency in his strides and on his face likely making people move out of the way quicker. You’d feel concerned about losing your spot in the crowd if your mind wasn’t so scrambled with need, your body rushing to keep up with your lanky boyfriend.

Your head is spinning as he swiftly leads you into the nearest gender-neutral bathroom. Matty’s hands are on you the moment he closes and locks the door, he’s all over you in every sense of the term. You breathe in the musk of his sweat between the melding of your lips. The kiss is messy, it’s searingly hot as he desperately licks into your mouth, his fingertips digging into your hip bones. He backs you up blindly until your hips meet the bathroom counter, his hands reaching to undo the hoodie tied around your waist and toss it aside without breaking the kiss once. You didn’t think you could get much hotter than you were in the crowd, but now you’re burning up from the inside with white-hot desire.

Matty hastily turns you around to face the bathroom mirror, tagged with graffiti and littered with lipstick prints at the border. It was clear the space was well-loved, but clean. A culmination of every aspiring artist and sticker enthusiast in the area, almost no spot on the wall was left untouched. Your eyes are drawn away from the decor as Matty grasps your jaw from behind you, turning your head to make you meet the almost feral look in his eyes through the mirror. He holds you that way as he leans down to press urgent, open-mouthed kisses to your neck, his other hand snaking down your front to unbutton your pants. The feeling of his tongue stud soothing over faded love bites only makes you weaker in the knees. Matty fumbles with the zipper of your jeans for a moment before he shoves the clothing down your legs, the fabric pooling around your ankles. It’s clear that he’s not wasting time with his usual delicate, worshiping caresses of your thighs while he undresses you, this is an electrified frenzy.

“No bra, baby? Is that how you want to play?” he mutters, his lips grazing the column of your neck teasingly.

“I-I didn’t-” you begin to protest, only to be cut off by your own moan as he gives a rough pinch to your nipple through your top.

Matty follows the curve of your midsection with his hand, intense honey-colored eyes locked on you through your reflection, swirled at the edges with colorful spray paint. A shudder reverberates through your body as his fingers venture lower, dipping below the waistband of your soaked panties. Your body instinctually arches backward against his, mewling when his calloused fingertips brush against your swollen clit. It’s like he can light up every one of your senses with just a graze, your breath getting shallower by the second. You feel his stiff cock twitch in his trousers as you press yourself impossibly closer to him, every inch of his glowing skin flush against your back. Matty continues his loving assault on your neck as his thick digits gather the arousal pooling between your thighs. Your dazed vision trails downward as you stare at his hand shoved inside your panties from behind you, watching the fabric shift with every movement of his skilled fingers. You whine as he circles your slit before beginning to sink his slicked digits into you, your eyes squeezing shut as the dizzying pleasure thrums in your veins.

“Shhh. You know how much I love your pretty noises, baby, but be good, okay? Can you do that? Don’t want anyone to know what we’re up to, do you?” he murmurs, dragging his plush bottom lip against your ear lobe.

You nod wordlessly, afraid that if you open your mouth, noise will overflow from you uncontrollably, his fingers being knuckle-deep in you is just too damn good. If you don’t control yourself, anyone outside could hear you, could know how good your boyfriend is filling you with his fingers, satisfying you to your very core. The thought of it alone makes your heart hammer in your chest harder. You don’t want them to know… because that would be wrong, it would be undignified… it’d be… kind of hot.

His digits stretch you open as he begins to diligently pump them in and out of you, curling them towards the spot that he knows will make you see stars. He works quickly, his pace is almost feverish from his determination to make you fall to pieces as fast as he can. Matty’s other hand is groping your breast, squeezing the fullness of it, his rings pressing into your flesh through your thin tank top. You bite down on your lip hard enough that you think you might tear the flesh open, desperately trying to keep your whimpers quiet. Matty’s gaze on you is cautionary, his eyebrows slightly raised like he’s testing you, seeing just how much you can take.

The last of your defenses come crumbling down as the pad of his thumb presses against your clit, the flood of sensations making a moan burst from your throat as he begins to draw tight circles on the bundle of nerves. In an instant, Matty’s hand is off of your chest and is clasped over your mouth, muffling any noise. Fuck.

“I mean it. Pipe down, or I’ll stop,” he says sternly, smirking at you as he feels your walls flutter around his fingers.

“No- no, please don’t stop,” you babble against his palm like the idea of it was simply unbearable.

Matty’s hand stays over your mouth as he withdraws his fingers from inside you, ignoring the way you squirm in protest, whining uselessly. He tugs your ruined panties down your legs, letting them join your pants in a heap around your ankles. It’s almost embarrassing how you can hardly contain your desire, but he likes it that way, knowing how needy you are.

“Matty, please, fuck, need it,” you mumble, and he can see the way your desire is clawing at you from the inside just from a glance.

“Be patient for me, my love,” he smiles, hurriedly pulling himself out of his uncomfortably skin-tight pants with his free hand, “You’ll get what you want. Being stuffed full with my cock, hm?”

You whimper as Matty nudges your legs further apart with his foot, leaning you forward over the counter onto your elbows. He whistles lowly at the sight of you, his eyes following down your spine, over the curve of your ass, and to your dripping pussy. You tremble slightly as he reaches between your legs, collecting your honey on his fingers before spreading it over his shaft, slicking himself with your arousal. A whine vibrates against the palm Matty holds over your mouth as you swing your hips in a desperate attempt to entice him. He just chuckles, keeping his hand firmly in place as starts to guide his cock through your folds, the head kissing your aching clit as he rubs it back and forth.

Matty doesn’t waste a second longer, you can hardly process it before he’s pushing inside of you, gasping as he fills you inch by inch. His fingertips press into the side of your face as he tightens his hold on your mouth to muffle your mewls, watching as your lashes flutter, your face contorting with pleasure. He can feel your hot, heavy breaths fanning into his palm, your chest heaving as he bottoms out inside of you. Matty groans loudly, tossing his head back as he’s fully surrounded by your velvety warmth, forgetting his own volume rules that he’d set for you. Hypocrite.

“Oh, fuck, you feel so good,” he sighs, reaching to pull your tank top over your breasts, “Stay like that for me, yeah? Wanna see your perfect tits.”

He barely allows you a moment to breathe before he’s snapping his hips against you roughly, letting out a strained grunt with every thrust. Sensations trickle up your spine like flickering flames as a muffled cry spills out of you. Matty angles his hips just right, hitting so deep inside you that you feel as though you’re being split open by each drive of his cock, it’s mind-numbing. Your whole body jolts against the counter with his purposeful movements, the edge of the porcelain biting into your hip bones. He can hardly focus on just one thing, his gaze darting from where he’s disappearing inside of you, to your gorgeous face, to your breasts. Matty’s raspy voice makes your eyes refocus on him, you watch in the mirror as he licks his teeth like he wants to devour you whole.

“You see how pretty you look? No, no, sweetheart, don’t look at me, look at yourself. God, isn’t she pretty?” he drawls, “You look so sexy, wearing my chain like that while you’re taking my cock.”

At his instruction, you meet your own eyes through the reflection, your eyebrows sloping as you realize that he’s right, you do look pretty when he’s fucking you. Your rosied cheeks, your blown pupils, your glowing skin… and your boyfriend’s hand over your mouth. Your chain bounces against your collarbones in tandem with your pierced tits, it’s no wonder he’s loving this position so much, he gets to watch everything at once. While you’re gazing at yourself, Matty reaches around and begins to rub two fingers on your clit, rubbing in intoxicatingly quick figure eights. You watch your own eyes go wide as the pleasure ricochets through your bones, making you light-headed. This must be the expression Matty lives for when he’s got you like this, the face to his sweetest wet dreams. You’re almost mesmerized by seeing yourself get railed to high heaven, it’s sort of an odd feeling. In one swift motion, Matty lets go of your face and grasps the chain around your neck, pulling it taut against your throat from behind, ripping a shocked cry from your lips.

“Ohh, she liked that one,” he grins lazily, tilting his head back with a groan as he feels your walls clamp down on him like a vice, “Shit, not gonna last if you keep doin’ that, god damn.”

It feels like he’s stolen the air directly from your lungs as he lightly chokes you with the silver links you’d so slickly “borrowed” from him. Even just the slight restriction of oxygen has you reeling, your eyes rolling back as your hands claw at the counter, your whole body buzzing with mortifying heights of exhilaration. It’s a dizzying combination of thrill and precarious risk as Matty keeps a tight hold on the chain while fucking you with such vigor that you don’t feel attached to your body, the counter being your only loose grasp on reality. It only makes every drive of his cock feel that much more visceral, the tension coiling tighter in your belly. Heat prickles at your cheeks and the bridge of your nose at the purely obscene sounds of him thrusting into your sopping cunt, skin on skin echoing through the small space while his fingers abuse your clit.

It’s all building up so fast, quicker than usual due to Matty’s frenzied rhythm, his hips meeting yours again and again, unrelentingly. You bite back a wail as the tension so deep inside you reverberates in crackling pangs, threatening to break you to pieces as you arch backward. Your hips writhe against his hand both like you’re chasing the friction and trying to thrash away from its intensity. He can tell you’re on the edge of euphoria, teetering with every swipe of his fingers, every slam of his hips. He gives the chain a harsh tug, knowing it’ll send you spiraling into the depths of pleasure just beyond your fingertips.

“Fuck!” you gasp, one of your hands flying to grip his wrist as your mind goes impossibly blank, your nails digging into his skin, “I’m gonna- I-I can’t!”

“Shit, me too angel, so close. Oh, fuck, cum for me, sweet girl. Cum for me while I fill you up,” he grunts, a burst of energy coming over him as he manages to piston into you even more brutally.

It crashes over you like a thunderous wave, spiraling through you from your dizzied head to the tips of your curled toes. He lets go of the chain, putting his hand over your mouth again to stifle your cry, the disorienting rush of oxygen almost making your knees give out from underneath you, and they just might have if Matty hadn’t kept you supported against the counter. It feels like pure white light is fizzling under your eyelids as Matty makes you reach the stars with your climax, dousing you in pulsating bliss as you clamp around him hard. He lets out a deep, animalistic sound as he spills inside of you, warmth flooding your insides as he fucks you through your orgasm, his rhythm beginning to falter from the effort.

“Fuuuck!” he hisses through gritted teeth, along with other breathy strings of profanities.

Slowly, his body stutters to a stop, giving one last roll of his hips before he collapses over you as delicately as he can, enveloping you with his chest to your back. He lovingly presses kisses to the back of your neck as your head hangs forward slightly, both of you gasping to catch your breath.

“H-holy shit, babe. You’re so good…you’re fucking incredible,” he mutters, seeming just as dazed as you are.

He can’t seem to stop complimenting you and loving on you as he keeps you held up with his hands on your hips, rubbing little circles into your hip bones as you both come down from the highest of highs. The afterglow clouds your head in a way that makes you feel like you’re floating with Matty being your only anchor to the ground.

“Matty…” you mumble, reaching back blindly for his face.

“I’m right here. Right here, love,” he whispers, guiding your palm to his cheek.

You smile warmly as you feel the scruffy sides of his head at your fingertips, Matty keeping his hand over yours sweetly. At the same time you both glance upwards at the mirror, letting out simultaneous giggles as you appreciate the state you’re in. He leans to kiss your cheek, peering into your eyes adoringly through the reflection, pulling your top back down over your breasts.

“Oh my god… we’re a mess,” you snort, rubbing aimlessly at your runny mascara with your free hand.

“You mean you’re a mess, I look damn good,” he jokes, starting to slowly ease you both back up into a standing position.

You both let out a breathy sound as he pulls out of you slowly, his cum beginning to streak down your thigh. Of course, Matty stares, swallowing thickly like he’ll never quite get used to the sight while he shimmies back into his pants. Diligently, he reaches for a handful of paper towels, keeping a gentle hold on your hip. You reach to try and smack his arm when he laughs at the way your legs are trembling, your knees wobbling due to how hard he’d railed you. He dodges the blow, grinning at you triumphantly.

Matty gently wipes away the residue of his pearly release, whispering a hushed “I know, I know” when you squirm at the sensitivity. Once he discards the paper towels, he kneels down to pull your underwear and your jeans back up, kissing his way up the outside of your leg as he does so while looking into your eyes with a playful glint. He kisses you deeply while he buttons your pants with nimble hands, not even letting you lift a finger as he takes care of his girl. You throw your arms around his neck, smiling into the kiss as he teases his tongue piercing along your bottom lip just to make you shiver.

“My perfect girl,” he mumbles against your mouth.

You stay in the bathroom for just a little longer, kissing and whispering sweet things to each other while your bodies fully calm down, Matty shouting at whoever keeps intermittently knocking on the door to fuck off. You can’t help but feel a little tinge of guilt in your stomach for “christening” the restroom the way you did, but you highly doubt you were the first.

After he reassures you that the makeup streaked down your cheeks is “hardcore” and that you should leave it the way it is, you finally leave to re-enter the show (not before one final, drawn-out kiss, of course). Your boyfriend keeps you close by his side, his fingers interlocked with yours as you find yourselves at the very back of the pit, scattered with only a few other people. Matty guides your arms around his neck, grinning at you like a fool as you start to rock back and forth to the rhythm of the drums. His smile is infectious as he leans in to rest his forehead against yours, singing to you when the song reaches its chorus. He looks incredibly dorky as mimics the wail of the guitar solo, swinging his hips while his hands rest comfortably on your waist, almost like you’re about to slow dance. You tell him as such and Matty just tosses his head back with a laugh like a little kid. His eyes are sparkling, but not just from the iridescent stage lighting, it’s the look he gets only when he’s with you. You feel your heart swell in your chest as you continue to dance like you’re the only two in the venue, and he looks at you like you’re the only woman in the whole world.

—-----------------------------------------

SO I was a liar and I did write another part. I intended this to be a blurb but I had so many more thoughts about them and their relationship eeeeee

The ending was soooo “do you wanna dance, dance at the back of the hall”

I love them. I need them to be happy forever actually.

This one is dedicated to my lovely lovely friend B (@haveyouseenherlately) thank you so much for the ideas, you get body piercer like no one else, queen. Love you!!!

Go check out her stuff if you haven’t it SLAYS <3

#body piercer!matty #matty healy smut #matty healy x reader #matty healy x you #the 1975 smut #the 1975 x reader #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy fic #the 1975 fic #the 1975 fanfic

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kishdoodles · 22 hours

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Treebark Week 2024 - A Post-Mortem

Hi! If you haven’t seen, I have released seven (7!) videos for Treebark Week 2024! This wall of text is my behind the scenes and also post-mortem thoughts on the project, which I found worth documenting.

Even if you don’t end up reading the text, I appreciate every comment, tag, and view my videos get. I did it for the fun of it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do it for the attention. I did, because I think these videos are the funniest things I’ve ever released. Shoutout to @thefluxqueen for being my partner in crime and confidant for these. You saw my vision.

I wanted to do something for Treebark week but admittedly I had noooo idea. So this whole gimmick was a fun set up for me to stretch my creativity in. What started as “I’m just going to do everything in mspaint with a mouse” spiraled to “I think it’s going to get boring if everything’s in the same style, so I’m going to have to do something different everyday.”

The important factor to me throughout all of this is earnesty.

Even if its life started as a joke, this project is a love letter in every respect. This is what I grew up on, this is the YouTube that is precious to me. Capturing this era of time in 7 videos is all at once easy, yet surprisingly laborious.

First I planned the songs. Fitting the songs with the prompts was a brain scratcher, but once we (me and Spain) had a few in the rest slotted in pretty easily. Common thread was, of course, any popular song from the mid-late 2000s.

The first confirmed song was Sugar, Sugar for Sweet (Day 2) courtesy of Spain, given the Eddsworld video. We had a few songs for Burn (Day 3) or Infernal (Day 4) which we threw out (Elli Goulding’s Burn, 2NE1’s Fire, Steam Powered Giraffe’s Fire Fire, etc.) I ended up digging through my old playlist and listened to 20% Cooler, which after a realization I immediately slotted it for Frost (Day 1). Spain brought up the Heat Waves parody (Cold Spells) for Frost too, to which I realized I could just do regular Heat Waves, so that became what I did for Burn.

Bring Me To Life was brought to my attention (I forgot how, maybe Youtube recommendations?) and with the lyrics, it became the song for Blood (Day 7). The all time classic, Angel with a Shotgun, fit in nicely with the prompt of Divine (Day 4), so there was no contest. Another classic, Everytime We Touch, was harder to fit but I eventually reasoned through the prompts enough to fit it with Lips (Day 5) (the everytime we kiss part).

At this point, nothing I’ve found fit Day 6 (picnic/garden/strawberry) at ALL. So I decided the only way I knew how. RANDOM CHOICE!

Mad World won but that was a trap, for I have biased myself toward Animal I’ve Become at that point and it almost won, so I went with that instead. This is a lawless land.

The actual video ideas really came to me in piecemeal, so I’ll explain how I got each idea as I cover each day in order of when I completed them.

20% Cooler (Day 1) was the most straightforward of the days. It was done in 1 hour and 30 minutes and I was purposefully being extremely literal about the lyrics. I already had the vision for what I want, and I didn’t want to care about quality all that much, so it came together really fast.

For my process, I lined with mspaint brush and then bucket tooled with default colours. I took advantage of the new layer system mspaint added for some scenes, but otherwise it was as simple as just drawing. (Pictured, 3 layers for 2 scenes.)

It was really easy to just quickly edit in Windows Movie Maker 6 too, I just dragged the pictures in, slapped effects, roughly timed everything and it’s done.

Programs used: mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6

Sugar, Sugar (Day 2) was an honest effort at avoiding any complicated animations. I initially thought of doing an animation similar to the original video that inspired the song choice, but eventually scaled back because. I don’t want to animate.

Thus came the decision of subject matter. I ended up settling on the demon roleplay because I thought it was the campiest thing in the world. And it was a sweet reunion, no? The lyrics just fit the vibe, and in a moment of brilliance (hitting the showers) I thought to make a visual novel. One reflective of old flash games and like the visual novels of cultural zeitgeist at the time.

I’ve known about Ren’py for quite some time now, but I’ve never properly learned how to use it. For this my task was simple. Find out how to change sprites, backgrounds, and move people into the scene.

Sprites and backgrounds were easy, so those were the first things I did. Ren’s sprites were inspired in design by Demon Hunters in the Warcraft world, mostly because I was playing a lot of Hearthstone and liked the idea. Martyn’s sprite style was inspired by early 2000s anime visual novels, like Higurashi (though I’ve personally never consumed it nor do I actually recommend consuming this piece of media (neutral) its ripple throughout the anime community was felt. Notably, parodies of the anime’s opening were very popular.) I toned back the stylizations, but trust me when I say that Martyn’s hands were purposefully big to be yaoi hands. It didn’t end up that big, and I did not give him the dorito chin here so, immense self control on my part (or cowardice?). False and Joel were just my regular style. For all this I used my tablet instead of my mouse.

The programming part was a little troublesome, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t google, so it got done pretty fast. There’s other small bits, like how I mismatched the background sizes, the sprite sizes (with each other)(minorly) but for the most part it came together pretty quick. Once the VN was done, it was just about recording it. So I put on the song, and danced along.

[You can download the VN here]

Programs used: Ren’Py, OBS, mspaint, After Effects (just to move the scene over at the beginning)

So I knew I wanted a classic style AMV, so that eventually became Everytime We Touch (Day 5).

The pictures mostly come from a discord server I’m in (hi [redacted]!!!!) and I thought of it like a nice homage to the insanity we had in there. Bless all of you guys, you guys were the ones I wanted this series to be made for the most.

Not much to say beyond that, besides me just editing it all on movie maker as usual.

Programs used: Windows Movie Maker 6

Angel With a Shotgun (Day 4) was the last to be planned for. I predicted it was going to be the easiest to make on the fly (it was) and just kind of winged it. I wanted a unique style still for it though, and the idea of drawing their cubitos came pretty late.

I was not exempt from this trend in my youth (my art in mspaint, age 11, me and my sister)

The rest was history. Just kidding, I really wanted something to do with the shotgun thing so I literally searched “shotgun” in Curseforge and got MrCrayfish’s gun mod just for the shotgun. I loaded up the 3rd Life world I had from my Broken Lives animatic (it’s a custom made world using the seed) and just got to work with FreeCam and OBS (it’s my first time with FreeCam too!)

A rejected clip I didn’t use because of skin consistency / continuity.

Programs used: Minecraft, mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6

Heat Waves (Day 3) acquired a pixel art style as an homage to its original lyric video. People have said it reminded them of Homestuck, which I honestly don’t mind. It fits the era and I did grow up with it. It kinda looped back in on itself that way.

I blame this frame, here's it as a gif which lies unused.

For the video, the more I rewatched bits of Last Life for it (it’s been a while!) I realized it had a lot more potential than I initially thought. Though I doubt most of it didn’t come through in the final product (I limit these videos to a minute or less, if possible, excepting credits and allowing few more seconds over the minute mark so long as it felt warranted), I tried to cram in what I thought fitting to the prompt the whole time.

The watch tower burning was an easy pick, a classic Treebark moment you might say. For the rest of it, the nuance laid a lot in how Martyn presented the Shadow Alliance. “The Dog, The Shadow, The Roots. We make this place burn.” Under the eyes of the moon, it witnessed this pact form, and its resolution for the server. The moon is included in multiple frames because of this, as a stand-in for the eye of the Watcher(s) I included at the start, watching Martyn through the series.

In a lot of ways, how Lizzie and BigB turned red I also found fascinating. Lava and explosions you could argue are an extension of burning and fire, and an explosion was also how Martyn left the series. Ren, from the start of this alliance, inexplicably committed to and saw through what ultimately rips the people he was loyal to away from him.

Martyn on the other hand, I drew in the later portions quite aware of the position he’s in, hence only his eye in the frame with the last 4 folks. This to me starts a path for him toward where he goes in the later serieses (notably in Limited Life). This is all very “vibes” and instinctual kind of “trust me on this” sort of read on c!Martyn honestly.

On missed opportunities, I’m almost upset at how I never brought up the moment Martyn buys a love crystal from Scar (never used, it got blown up) which I (and a lot of other) may have delusionally thought it was for Ren. Besides that, I never had a chance to desaturate the colours in the video leaving only red (which Ren did upon the encounter of the establishment of the Moon Cult)(it really emphasized Martyn’s lips!), I tried just plain desaturating, but ended up ditching it since it never felt like it jived well with the rest of the video.

All that aside, I finished this one really late (for me, which was past midnight on the day it was going to be posted), so I’m glad it was out on time. It’s the one I put in the most effort for, and I’m glad to see people enjoy it.

The eye on its own, which reveals the Watcher symbol I accidentally did in the wrong orientation. Oops!

Programs used: Aseprite, After Effects

Animal I Have Become (Day 6) was thought on for a while. Eventually I have my eureka moment and I thought it was a nice shout out to the Bannedstory community who I’ve followed in my early days, where I’d watch animations of people’s custom OCs (original characters) made with Maplestory sprites animated to audio clips that I really wasn’t supposed to be listening to at the time lol. That, and all the online games and the like I grew up with on the early internet. I personally didn’t partake in it, but roleplaying on those was a common sight, and I found it endearing.

My partner in crime for this day in particular was @thefluxqueen, because I really can’t be bothered with character customization for a lot of these games (I respect the craft but I lack the patience), but I knew who LOVED doing that. He really knocked it out of the park, helping me do the Gachalife, Club Penguin, and the characters for Animal Jam and Ponytown. For the latter, they handed me the account information and we just went to town.

A Treebark stream in a just world.

I can’t tell you exactly how I assigned the lyrics, but I definitely assigned the animal sections during the chorus so it was a surprise (and so it also fit the lyrics). I did have fun recording and we had a fun time in Ponytown. We were shown where other mcyt fans are by a Grian pony (Hermit Hill) and then we hung out there sitting down while we workshopped the Bannedstory segments with both our sonas together. All in all a great time.

It took a few takes.

Programs used: Bannedstory 3 (I would’ve loved to use 4, I grew up with that!), Gachalife, Club Penguin, Animal Jam, Ponytown, Windows Movie Maker 6, OBS

For Bring Me to Life (Day 7)... I ended up getting more attached to the thought of it the longer this project went on.

I wanted it to be the end all be all, go out with a bang and everything. I kept thinking and thinking, how do I end Treebark week? After a week of homages, how do I make the last one?

What’s beyond my childhood? It was just growing up. But it’s not like I had to let anything go. My artistic endeavors are influenced by all of my experiences. I saw good reason to bring it all home, do a callback to the styles of the entire week, it’s my victory lap.

And why not call back every instance of Treebark through the entire series then? This evolved into me learning more about Martyn’s lore because I want to be informed! I want to make this as someone who earnestly loves the narrative of these characters, and the stories they’ve told.

From a story perspective, it felt like Martyn was always doomed to tragedy. Suppose the life series always does end tragically, but Martyn’s Vtuber in relation to all this has its own inherent tragedy to it. In my eyes, this roamer of cyberspace constantly has to live through different lives with familiar people. The people he loved and cared for in one world will always be ripped from him, and he knows that.

Amongst everything the Unguided Hand gets me the most. In the video I drew the Ren he chases as a shadow. He’ll never get the Ren he knew then, back. Even if he meets another Ren in another world, it's never going to be The Red King. To me, Limited Life is the snapping point, a point of selfishness above all else in the comfortable knowledge that he wins, without ever needing to experience the same closeness and loyalty he had in lives past. The realization that this is what the game was about. Winning at all costs. I wanted the progression to reflect that.

Deep down, maybe he yearns to be saved from all that. The song echoes that sentiment. I tried to match the lyrics to how I saw the timeline of events as close as possible for that to hit. In this, Ren is his anchor, someone that he gets drawn to no matter the incarnation. The tragedy is that Ren, even if he knows about what Martyn’s going through, can’t join him in this journey. Martyn will always be alone in this experience, and Ren can only be a short comfort before the cycle starts anew.

I quite liked the pixel art I did for LimLife!Martyn

From a meta perspective, this video (and by extension, the whole series) is about art and creating. I have been obsessed with art for 14 years now, and as time goes on I’ve grown fond of every way that we, as people, have evolved our storytelling. The multitudes of mediums that we have developed to express ourselves and share narratives will continue to fascinate me endlessly. Cringe be damned, there is a universal desire to create and enjoy stories of all folds. From the smallest story told from painstakingly typing chat boxes for little custom-made characters to say, to the highest production play put on for multiple hours in a game of Minecraft.

And at the beginning of my journey lay paper and pencil. Bring Me To Life is an elaborate pun on my end, yes, but also a reflection of my roots. I started my journey as an artist endlessly doodling the adventures of tiny magical girls fighting demons, drawing fanart of costumes in MMO games I found cool, and sharing them with my friends at school. I find myself still drawing, still creating, for hundreds, if not thousands of eyes to see. Still I get inspired by the stories others tell, and I create in turn. In appreciation, in love.

Bring Me To Life as a song, is a slate that, to me, reflected what I saw in the relationship of Treebark. Bring Me To Life is also a demand, of a piece of art that I had a vision for, that I wanted to bring to life. I struggled at how to end it for a while. Closing the book became very straightforward. It’s the end of this video, this saga, and another way that me, as a Watcher myself (as what they’re originally meant to represent) exercises control over stories in my own unique way. Creation is never limited to a select few. I think everyone should keep getting inspired by the things around them, and keep making art in turn.

To the people who’ve made it til the end here, make art, keep creating. Do shitty doodles, write whatever you want, make sounds and crafts and keep living. That’s all I really want, and this was what this whole series was about.

Programs used: mspaint, Aseprite, Blockbench, Bannedstory 3, Pencil and paper, After Effects

#art #writing #mcyt #treebark #treebarkweek #treebarkweek2024 #inthelittlewood #rendog #itlw #kishdrabbles

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