Tumgik
#college kids vs old people
Text
love my own like theatrical relationship to shakespeare which is a) being so slow to realize like "oh, i've loved theatre? everyone doesn't just feel this way & go 'of course acting onstage would fucking kick ass' & adore rehearsals and hanging around backstage and in greenrooms and changing and performing & etc?' never really occurred to me" and b) my response to most encounters w/shakespeare being "wha" when it comes to anything granular yet the relevance still in the spirit of things lol
namely one prominent example being i was an on campus college student where said campus has a shakespearean theater literally three blocks away, and we had like a freshmen orientation weekly class there doing shit with actors and checking out the theater, not to mention like punchcards to see four shows free (to write up about afterwards but yeah sure whatever) and this wherein also you always got student discount tickets And there were pwyw performances....kicked ass. i went there for shows so many times. i have never fucking known what tf is going on in any of the like dozen shows i saw there when a) audio processing can be tricky enough for real life modern vernacular parsing and b) sure am not used to ye old very stylized language nor any other qualities of shakespearean material so lots of times when i finally started to kind of acclimate to the language it would be like "oh wait that was the conclusion? ok. hoorayyyyy" like also c) You Have A Great Time Seeing Shakespeare Productions Anyways like again i loved going anytime. it's Theatrical and if people are just putting their damn backs into delivering and performing the material it's An Experience even if you're really not following lmfao. and i suppose one can read the text / familiarize oneself beforehand
also like my first and really one of my only like regular theatre performing experiences was my literature class in fourth grade doing a few scenes from julius caesar. i was so hype for getting cassius like one of the most prominent roles? a guy? an antagonist if you're caesar or dante??? oh Fuck yes. b/c of technical difficulties we got to perform it twice in a row when we did a field trip to some other school to perform our respective [scenes from various shakespeare plays] altogether. even back then i was way into it and cared about stuff like "we have like no Effects to make it that dramatic when we kill caesar. or like, non silent. bit awkward" and "also i like, don't know how to act and am just winging it. and of course, i'm also like 9" like in theory i do like to know How to do something vs trying to make it up myself. somewhat lol. a balance, who can argue w/that
beyond that there's also lots of things i just didn't quite realize "counted" lmfao like, when you're a theatre gay with a parent req'ing you go to church every week but you have a good time being in the choir....i was sure on those tenor harmonies & singing loud. and going relatively often to various live theatrical events, having an engaging enough time there, but also would've assumed anyone would be into it And that that's not really the same as actually being in them, of course. but that most of my firsthand experience was just sticking w/ballet for like a decade, and kind of live theatrical performance adjacency there. don't say shit, for years was effectively just like, an ensemble for the occasional performances, but even then it's like hoorayyy i Love rehearsing and being onstage and backstage and dealing w/costumes and coordination behind the scenes and shit. and eventually being like, a distinct individual character in shows, so despite again nobody saying shit you're still somewhat interpreting and doing whatever character work while also enjoying the bennies of [it's dance, so also it's choreographed]....even more clear like oh i love backstage and rehearsing and behind the scenes and onstage and putting together stage character makeup, and i don't mind tackling technical difficulties, and etc etc. didn't even necessarily have the reference like, idk, wouldn't / doesn't everyone feel similarly. classic ye old memory of like being idfk 7 or some shit simply getting to walk with classmates behind a backdrop to the opposite wing of a stage, and loving that lmao. combines a love for [backstage] and [secret passages] type deal lol, big fan of these elements
also in 7th grade doing a theatre/drama class for a few months and we couldn't really get like all this in depth extensive stuff b/c you know, intro course for like 8 weeks for rando middle schoolers, but idk it was just illustrative lmao like after julius caesar, us slapping together some kind of script and my getting to be this fun little theatrical(tm) antagonist guy again? feedback was "what was supposed to be happening" but could've stood to have learned that the enthusiasm and affinity i felt for acting onstage was perhaps indicative of enthusiasm and affinity for acting onstage rather than just, idk, the exact kind of baseline experience any & everyone would have lol. not that i would've necessarily had the chance to really do anything with that knowledge, but even now, ofc i don't particularly anticipate getting to use it, but it's great having that knowledge like ohhh i see. the entire time i've been huge into doing theatre with all these kind of adjacent & gently overlapping brushes with it. gotcha
#an issue with Figuring Out What I Like or Trying New Things; a) having to be driven everywhere#b) just not safe to be open with ''this is something i like doing''#c) things being worse for like [i like doing this performance i don't like that parents are in the audience / involved]#didn't try out for anything in middle school b/c a) nervous. no experience; it's middle school. i don't have a great time w/Peers.#b) i'd have to let parents know i was doing that / they would then be involved; & see it....puts a real damper on things#didn't try out for anything in college b/c by then it's like. i Really have no experience lmao even if i could do this myself#kind of only deterred by my same age roommate being A Theatre Person with that prior experience lol....#but then Shakespeare Theater Company Proximity & Everyone Getting Introduced Via That Class / another kind of tangential theatre experience#hell yes....thank you for all that you did. dunno what's going on in there but you truly have a great time#even just Readings are fun but again people Gotta put their back into it or it does become like [zzz]#anyways and in this day and age....would still like to have actual acting instruction. all an abstract idea. but i for sure Like To Know.#the Ideas / Knowledge of oneself & like ''oh that's smthing i super like actually'' or what all i'd even theoretically like to do / have...#value in such things. i love to Know i think it would be cool to have like a buttonsy digital / calculator type wristwatch too. e.g.#and for real besides me talking about myself the advice is yeah go to a fun shakespeare production#''knowing what the hell is actually going on'' is Not a priority / requirement. it'll be an enjoyable experience still#oh and i did have an achievement in having A Fan once lol. when i started getting standalone roles vs [class ensemble in the back] at one#point i got to have a cats (jellicle) inspired like purple sparkly arms/legwarmered elaborate facemakeupped role; fun in & of itself#but whomsoever came to this little like middle/highschoolers community production included some absolute randos i encountered in the hall#after whatever show where this like 8 yr old kid's dad was like ''she's your (the role) biggest fan can we get a pic''#like Of Course....so i pose with said kid. hell yeah babey i'm An Actor with A Role lol....fr it was fun so#even illuminating to piece together my affinity / comfort for concepts & zones like things Behind The Scenes / hidden or secret / Nighttime#being backstage or behind the backdrop to get to another wing or hanging out in an effective greenroom w/amicable parties & our roles....#oh and that naturally the abstract concept of acting has just always seemed fun. and not like that strange or difficult#someone talking abt being autistic & learning like ''oh having friends Isn't supposed to feel like you have to constantly be performing?''#like yeah same up til recent history lmao like. lot of ways to simply already have a bit of organic training in acting lol#would still want some more actual training though lol like how do you do this shit Actually....got the essentials in fourth grade (be loud)#fr we didn't have mics of course so it was all just up to us to say our lines loud enough. couldn't actually hear other scenes [pensive]
7 notes · View notes
Text
Loser Round 4: Damian Wayne (DC) vs. Jason Todd (DC)
Tumblr media
A rematch? It's so funny how the bracket turned out this way.
Propaganda under the cut.
Damian Wayne (9-14):
Damian is a kid who was raised as an assassin and because of that when he first appears he has some really messed up ideas of how to prove himself to his father by being aggressive with the criminals they capture and attacking his brother. Because of this people act like he is the most evil character ever and refuse to give him any grace. They make him out to be this awful irredeemable monster who just wants to kill his brother and hurt people. If the fandom isn’t making his out to be The Worst(tm) then they are ignoring his existence all-together. He is a really interesting character who has done some not so great things but he’s grown and learned a lot through various character arcs (as much of an arc as a comic book character can have) and he deserves to be acknowledged for himself and not just as a villain so that people can woobify his brother.
——
HES JUST A LITTLE BABY GUY!!!!! Little baby man raised as an assassin and learning how to be a real person <3. But because he was kind of a dick and also a little stabby early-on, especially to the fandom's main "so sad uwu depressed baby" blorbo (and also he's not white), people treat him like he's satan incarnate
Jason Todd (~12):
Most of the Tumblr fandom likes this guy but if you step outside this website then wham so many people say he got what he deserved as a kid and Batman can't be cool if he's a dad so it's important for Batman to trash-talk his dead child constantly so we can all agree what a bad idea it was. Also wanna highlight that a lot of the records we have from fans at the time were clear they disliked Robin for BEING a child. Like a lot of the little dude characters in this tournament are treated too harshly for making an ugly choice and the fans aren't being understanding or sympathetic that the choice is made by a child character who is immature and not developed and strong enough to make a good choice and stuff. But THIS little dude was specifically hated FOR being a child. People wanted tough loner guy Batman not Batdad and his little buddy. The first Robin would drive back from college and guest star sometimes and be advertised as the Teen Wonder and people were like yeah okay but then Batman actually starts being a single parent for a child with needs and people were like UGH not the BOY Wonder. Today pretty much everywhere you see Batman fans saying Batman is better solo, no kid, it's not realistic to have a kid, a kid shouldn't be in the movies blah. Even if the comics they always find a way to send away the new kid so that Batman never has to parent. So all the Robins are being excluded from the narrative but I think this one is THE symbol of Batman fans hating a child character just for being a child.
-
Robin, Jason Todd, THE hated child character. In the 1980s, Batman comics had become increasingly dark and gritty. According to editor O'Neil himself, the courted audience wasn't kids but 19-40 year old men with disposable income. Batman's child sidekick, Robin, was offensively campy and childish. Fans called him wimpy, annoying, dumb, bratty, etc. Also people complained that Batman acting like an affectionate dad was unmanly and gay. Robin acts violent and emotional and people are like "ew he's so childish and emotional"—and then Batman literally acts just as murderously and emotionally within literally the same exact story and people are like "wow he's so dark and tortured". So in 1988 (after brutalizing Batgirl to get rid of her for being too bright and nice and kid-friendly), DC held a paid poll for fans to vote for Robin to live or die. O'Neil claims he heard a fan (a grown man with a dayjob as a lawyer) programmed a phone to spam kill votes. One fanguy claimed that he sold his Mercedes to buy kill votes (probably an exaggeration but still). By less than 1% margin, the vote decided to kill Robin in a spectacularly violent way. Anyway the 1989 Batman movie brought in a huge wave of new child comicbook fans who liked the new Robin (a very cool teenage high school Robin with a driver's license and a girlfriend), and DC started a separate Robin-less Batman series called Legends of the Dark Knight to make the anti-Robin writers and fans happy. But to this day, many fans agree it was a good idea to kill off the other Robin so that his foolish death reminds other characters to never be childish and stupid again. Bonus: the current Robin (usually a traumatized 10-year-old) has also been facing some pretty loud hatred for over 15 years.
110 notes · View notes
hedgehog-moss · 2 years
Note
i absolutely loved your recent explanation of french to english and english to french translations! sometimes, i read a book translated into english and you can just tell with the way sentences are traslated that they were written in another language first e.g. 'praising the portentous architecture of the sky with trite formulas' from elena ferrante's book (trans from italian).
not diminishing native english writers but that sentence stood out to me as like "oh okay, i dont know if a native english writer would have written that but, from my understanding of italian, that's been directly translated", it was very interesting if you understand what i'm trying to say. thank you.
You my friend are a sourceist ! :) As we call people who enjoy “feeling” another language right underneath the surface of a translation.
There’s a whole rivalry between translators who favour “sourcières” vs. “ciblistes” translations (as we say in French). Literally it’s sourceist vs. targetist, but English prefers verbs so I think you’d call it foreignising vs. domesticating translations. Basically it’s whether you prioritise the source language (preserving as much of its specificities as possible, even if it means “foreignising” your own language a little, writing in a way that will feel a bit unnatural to your reader) or prioritise the target language (“domesticating” the original text to make it more familiar to your reader, like when American publishing houses re-publish British books and change “Mum” to “Mom”). It’s often simplified as, are you more loyal to the author you’re translating, or to the reader you’re translating for. Most translators will say you need to find the right balance between the two extremes (but most translators are secretly targetists) (that’s my impression anyway.)
Both methods can lead to awful translations when you go too far in one direction—I remember making a post a couple of years ago about a translated book I was reading that was set in Kazakhstan, in which a character (who was supposed to be speaking Kazakh in the context of the story) said “We can’t invite every Tom, Dick and Harry.” That’s domestication gone too far—it was so jarring and nonsensical in a setting where all the characters had names like Kazangap and Sabitzhan!
But foreignising can also go too far—it’s difficult to do it well because you need to make sure the foreign phrases, concepts or connotations you preserve don’t clash with your own language’s concepts or connotations (or writing style preferences). It happens infuriatingly often in French books translated from US English that the translator keeps the word “college” to mean “university”. I don’t know why this stupid mistake is so common, they’ve got to be doing it on purpose, do they think it makes the book feel more American? But it just confuses the reader because collège in France is middle school. The word already exists!!! and it brings to mind 11-14 year-old kids so it’s really jarring and takes you out of the story when you need to remember every time that the “collège” students here are older teenagers. There are times when calquing foreign words or phrases in your translation is a bold, interesting choice—but not when it removes something (meaning, clarity, connotations) from your language.
It does work when it adds something—novelty or poetry or a connotation that tells you something about another culture without clashing with your own. Like in your example, if you calque an interesting turn of phrase that feels natural in one language and less so in another (but more poetic, intriguing, etc), then your language gains something. I like when translators do this with terms of endearment, like preserving “my little lizard” or w/e instead of replacing it with kitten or your cultural equivalent—if I’m reading a book set in another culture, I’m delighted to learn what silly things people in that culture call their kids or SOs. But it doesn’t work if it removes something from your language—for example if a character in a French novel calls a boy a term of endearment that’s masculine in French but feminine in Spanish, better change it to something else so you don’t confuse the Spanish reader / make them wonder if the boy is being teased or what—you’re asking them to remove meaning / connotations from their language to replace them with something else and the clash just takes you out of the story.
So it’s always a balancing act between your love and respect for the original language / culture / author’s writing style, and your duty to the reader, who needs something familiar enough to be intelligible and pleasant to read. (But at a certain point domesticating your translation too much suggests a lack of respect for your reader’s ability to handle unfamiliar concepts and their curiosity about other cultures.)
I remember reading an article by a translator of, I think, Uyghur, who wanted to keep the phrase “like a third-day moon” to describe a finely curved eyebrow. That's a foreignising translation if your culture isn’t familiar with the lunar calendar and the typical reader is clueless about what the moon looks like on the third day of the lunar month—but if they can guess from context that it’s a delicate eyebrow, it’s not the jarring sort of foreignising that takes you out of the story because you can’t figure out the connotation or it makes no sense in your language; it’s the kind that makes you go “oh, interesting phrasing” and might teach you something (but in a subtle way!) about the kind of culture that would use it. It’s one of the joys of reading translated literature, to discover details of another culture almost without noticing, without having them explained to you in so many words. You’re just absorbing them by osmosis by being immersed in a story in which the translator managed to preserve the right kind & the right amount of surprising little turns of phrase.
2K notes · View notes
Text
Found Family Tournament Round 1 Part 17 Group 81
Propaganda and further pictures under the cut
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Torchwood Team: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen, Toshiko
MANKAI Company: Izumi Tachibana, Sakuya Sakuma, Sakuya Sakuma, Masumi Usui, Tsuzuru Minagi, Itaru Chigasaki, Citron, Chikage Utsuki, Tenma Sumeragi, Yuki Rurikawa, Muku Sakisaka, Misumi Ikaruga, Kazunari Miyoshi, Kumon Hyodo, Banri Settsu, Juza Hyodo, Taichi Nanao, Omi Fushimi, Sakyo Furuichi, Azami Izumida, Tsumugi Tsukioka, Tasuku Takato, Hisoka Mikage, Homare Arisugawa, Azuma Yukishiro & Guy
Submissions are still open!
Torchwood Team:
they're all absolutely horrible <3
MANKAI Company:
I'm so sorry for submitting 26 characters but it's important and they canonically consider each other family. I'm so sorry. But they're so important to me.
24 gay theater kids came together and found a home
They are a big group of people that range from teenagers to adults and it’s very nice to see their dynamics as they all go through theater with different eyes, between those who have a long life in front of them and are excited to do something new, and those others who feel like they are too old for this but still do it regardless, and like the way friendships are born between those people who seem so different yet have some similarities some past memories they relate to, or also see the adults trying to be there for the younger members it’s very cute I swear. You see even if I ramble here it’s hard to explain because I would explain 6 whole years of lore but yeah overall is just a situation of, people who seem different but find similarities between one another and do their best to help who struggles and are all bond by one single aim which is bloom on stage!
These are 25 individuals that all come from completely different backgrounds, situations, and experiences that all happened to come together by chance, and formed a tight bond and family that cannot be replicated. Sakuya Sakuma, a young orphan boy who found refuge from his troubling homelife through theatre, found himself a home within this small run down theatre company, and found a family through the people in it. This isn’t a Headcanon, A3! Is a found family story. Sakuya views everyone there as a member of his family, and it’s not just him. Misumi Ikaruga, a man kicked out of his home for being “different” (cough Autistic cough), finally found a family that accepts and loves him unconditionally. Taichi Nanao had been taught that you need to always be fighting your way to the top, and whoever gets hurt along the way is nothing but a necessary casualty. So being able to find a place that is willing to work and rise with him, and care for him along the way… and the theres Azuma, a man so heavily affected by the trauma he experienced as a child, and yet has pushed it so far down to the point you wouldn’t even know it by looking at him. But here, this god who knows how old man finally found it, that home he has been searching for, and a place where he can finally break down his walls. Sure, one could argue a3! Is 4 different found families, but you would be wrong. Yes, each troupe is important, however would you then deny the importance of cross troupe relationships? The four leaders, who all encourage one another to do better, Tsuzuru and Kazunari, who allow one another to finally be honest about their feelings, Azami and Kumon who are the definition of “boys being boys”, Sakyo and Azuma, two adults who seem well past the years of found family, who found solace in one another. A3! Is about people of all ages coming together to be a family. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from. You could be just a random college kid off the road, or a former international spy, that doesn’t matter. Mankai has a spot for you, where you will be loved, accepted, and cherished.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
148 notes · View notes
oliveroctavius · 2 years
Note
I'm told the old Romita era comics made a number of failed attempts to advance Gwen, and one of them involved taking some of MJ's traits and giving them to Gwen. After Gwen passed away, Gwen then started to be romanticized because she was dead. Did Gwen ever have a personality unique to her or was she always just MJ-lite?
Well... Gwen came first.
The traits she adopted from MJ (at Stan Lee's request) were mostly cool-kid jargon and fashion sense, which are things it makes sense for friends to pick up from each other. They even manage to play it off as cute in-universe characterization.
Tumblr media
But they act and think very differently! If anything... MJ was Gwen-lite. Gwen at least got some thought bubbles. MJ started as just eccentric, hot, and self-centered because--well--it was funny.
They have separate lives. Gwen comes from an upper-class household with a cop for a dad and comes off as preppy and sometimes entitled. MJ lives with a working-class aunt and acts more alt-culture liberal but usually isn't on anyone's side but her own. Gwen is getting a scientific degree alongside Peter. MJ is following a long-shot dream of making it big by taking classes at community college. Gwen is Ditko flavored, MJ is Romita flavored.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Gwen is direct and confrontational where MJ is sarcastic and evasive. Gwen will insult someone she likes to get their attention while MJ will flatter people she dislikes just for kicks. Gwen has an investigative bent where MJ has a minding-my-own-damn-business field. Gwen checks in on friends' mental health, angry-cries fairly easily, and asks for help when she needs it. MJ would rather die than have an Unauthorized Feeling.
Gwen is fiercely loyal and cares a lot about things being Fair; she'll get in a stranger's face over something MJ would laugh off. MJ is now known as a combat pragmatist who can hold her own against supervillains, but people forget that Gwen would come at people with her BARE HANDS when she got mad. Just like Peter<3
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
"boring good girl vs cool bad girl" is the flattest way to read the girls' characterization and I'm sad it's reduced to that in people's minds. I say everything in this post as a huge 616 MJ apologist: Gwen wasn't left behind because she was the two-dimensional one.
417 notes · View notes
savnofilter · 7 months
Text
Taking Them Trick or Treating vs. Passing Out Candy HCs
-> h. sero, h. shinso, s. aizawa
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Hanta Sero | Hitoshi Shinso | Shota Aizawa x [GN]Reader
Tumblr media
CONTENT WARNING(S): college au—aizawa a professor, the other two are college students. sfw, trick or treating, established relationships.
COUNT: 1017 words.
I/B: His Spidey-Senses by me.
READ MORE: masterlist [students & adults masterlist].
A/N: i thought this was a fitting part two for the other fic i posted!! this was so much more fun than i thought i was going to have lol. again, my pc is fucking up so no fun text colors buts it's not that serious... anyways, enjoy! thank you, anon!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Sero chose… to go trick or treating! 🍭
since about the later teen years, Sero has always been one to hand out candy, but this year he wanted to be the one receiving the candy!
which it's funny, he literally chose this on his own volition and it’s you who’s being dragged out to go trick or treating.
this young twenty-something year old was so excited about y’all matching that he wanted to show out on Halloween night lmao.
+ if y’all went out partying on any of the prior nights, just know he was stuck by your hip the whole time (and even did a demonstration of ykw).
Sero literally makes a whole spectacle about it like the thought is hilarious.
bro is swinging from building to building with you in his arms when you get tired of walking, he keeps the mask on the whole time just so the kids around him still feel the excitement of “Spiderman” making a guest appearance in their neighborhood. :’)
please the amount of times you or the older people accompanying the other kids out have made you take pictures of Sero and them was too many times to count LOL.
At a certain point some grumpy person is like, “why is yo big funky ass doin’ all of this fo" and he doesn’t give a FUCK.
To which Sero is like, “my Spidey senses are telling me it’s passed your bedtime, geriatic” meanwhile the person questioning him is like 40 years old.
you hate to admit that you actually had fun doing this foolishness with him and it is one of the memorable nights for you.
would you do it again next year? absolutely not.
+ except, Sero always had a way of persuading you….
BONUS: Sero became a trending topic on social media with even news stations covering it. this latent function ended up being more beneficial than you ever thought it would be.
Tumblr media
Shinso chose… to go trick or treating! 🍭
this was barely his decision.
Shinso had already known about your adoration for Halloween but this was one of the first years of you two being together that you dragged him out on your shenanigans.
normally, you dress up and go along your merry way, with of course him reminding you to let him know if anything happens to call him. but this year, you wanted to do something different.
you wanted to do a couples costume.
the first idea was to do something like Squid Games, which he wasn’t opposed to. he could keep his face covered, spare his dignity, y'know?
then you changed your mind and wanted something more cute like Jack Skellington and Sally, which okay he doesn’t mind. he didn't want to say it out loud but you guys would look hot as them.
but the last and bright idea you went with was… salt and pepper?
yeah.
salt and pepper.
Shinso nearly passed out from it making no sense at all.
the worst part knowing he had no choice in the matter because once you made up your mind, that’s what y’all going with LMAO.
He’s like “why the fuck did you go with that idea?? Shit makes no sense.”
And you’re like, “sense when I have ever made sense with shit like this??? Be serious.”
let’s be real, y’all go together well because y’all both be so very unserious.
so when it’s Halloween night and y’all are out trick or treating, he has no choice but to keep his head held high and calls out to each door with a monotone, “trick or treat 😐".
he secretly had fun that night but you better not make him say it out loud.
Tumblr media
Aizawa chose… to pass out candy! 🎭
Aizawa doesn’t really give a fuck about holidays, like he does not care at all.
he’s the type of man who only does stuff if his s/o or someone he generally cares about loves it, but other than that if it was up to him he would not be entertaining this.
it's not like he hates holidays or like has some vendetta against them from traumatic experiences, mans just doesn’t gaf.
BUTTTTTT he will show out in the most driest way known to man just to support you lmao.
He’ll be like, “what? I thought this is what you wanted?” in his makeshift Halloween costume made with tissue paper around his forehead and waist as a ‘mummy’ as if his hero costume doesn’t already have those components?))?)#*(%)4
I hate to break the 4th wall here, but now I’m starting to debate whether he’d do some ghetto goofy costume or be one of those types to have a super good looking and creepy costume and jumpscares kids as they try to reach for the bowl.
FUCK IT, he decides to do both. this year and the next.
safe to say, you gave him a new tradition??? like visiting his house really is a trick or treat but this time it's in the area of if he will put in the effort or not depending on the year.
at a certain point this man is committed to stealing the show???
all you gotta do is come back to replace the candy lol.
not what you were expecting but it works out?
BONUS: you help with the fake-out sometimes by pranking the kids and reassuring them that the “statue” doesn’t move. it's even better when the parents get scared too.
Tumblr media
    all rights reserved © do NOT steal, alter or copy this work.
51 notes · View notes
kaythefloppa · 2 months
Text
Wild Kratts - Fish Out of Water Review [Spoilers]
April is finally here, and with it, three new episodes have been released on the PBS Kids Video App ahead of their release. At the time I'm posting this, it is midnight and the one hour special "Our Blue and Green World" is yet to air on televison and streaming, so I will get to that when I get to that. Given that I have already reviewed No Name Dream and Backpack the Camel, I'll give a review to this episode as well. Spoiler warning and opinions ahead under the cut
Tumblr media
First New York, then Hawaii, and now a goddamn University on the list of areas I would never expect these guys to film. Bros are everywhere.
As someone who is about to graduate high school, I feel IMMENSELY jealous of the college students who saw the motherfucking Kratt Brothers filming an episode on campus. I can already begin to see the floods of social media posts bragging about this on Tumblr and Twitter threads.
Tumblr media
Ok I feel bad for being a bit salty earlier, I actually think it's really sweet how these people outside of the show can share their interests and expertise in biology and physics to help children educate. The entire live-action opening where they study the locomotion of mudskippers is honestly really sweet, and we haven't even gotten to our main animal yet!
Tumblr media
God these are such cute animals. But beyond that, the term "fish out of water" could not be a more fitting title. They have joints like we do, can adapt to different environments, and can swim and climb like we can. This is probably my favorite live action segment because of how well structured the clips and movements are and just how fun it is seeing these little blorbs move around the place.
I should talk about how it took us half a decade to see a mudskipper on the show, and 13 years overall to get a focus episode, but so far, up to a great start and definitely worth waiting (for the most part).
Tumblr media
Oh so is it like the Hermit Crab episode where in all of the official releases they leave out the determiner but in the actual episode it's there? This has no overall bearing on the episode but I just felt the need to point it out.
Tumblr media
I should check off on my S7 bingo card about seeing the old inventions again because holy shit it's been almost a decade since we saw the Butterflier XT
Also can anyone identify those butterflies? I know for a FACT that those motherfuckers aren't monarchs because of their patterns (the only pattern variation in butterflies is sex-linked, and while I'm aware they live in Asia, this again, does not look like a match) but they also aren't viceroys because they lack the line around their wings. I only ask this to bring up my next point.
Tumblr media
I thought the Butterfly Disc we saw in Season 1 was specifically programmed based off of Monarch Butterflies. But as established (until proven wrong), these are not monarch butterflies. So unless Aviva retrofitted or reprogrammed the disc to be multi-familial, as in they can touch any butterfly regardless of classification and activate accordingly (like with the Crocodile, Dragonfly, and Gecko Discs), the activation should not work. I only ask this because while it seems miniscule, Chris' decision to bring out the disc is what sets off the plot - It's what causes him to loose the discs in the butterfly swarm, so I feel like, while not a critique, it's a legitimate question as to the direct programming of the discs vs. the animals used to activate.
Tumblr media
Man, Zach wasn't even in this episode and somehow they STILL lose their discs? (Actually, I am pleasantly surprised that they didn't take the opportunity to have this be a Zach-related episode).
You think they'd put a tracker on the collection or encode a chip the actual discs so that they wouldn't get lost this easily. This again, sounds like a nitpick, but earlier seasons set up a firewall for the Creature Power Discs and a tracking device/rocket-device on the Creature Power Suits and gloves because of how frequent these types of contingiences are, so there's really no excuse for this.
Tumblr media
(Suck my ass PBS Kids Video App, I'm still able to get high quality snips even with your bullshit formatting!!!)
They really went all out with the "other-wordly" vibe that the mudskippers' territory gave off. Once again, we waited two years for this to be put to animation and to see come air.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
I've made enough jokes around these situations in the show, so I think we'd all benefit if I just changed the subject: That front-facing mudskipper is fucking hilarious.
Tumblr media
*Martin's voice* - Slimy Skin-breathers!
Okay, but I actually did not know that. At all. Even 10 years later, this show is still teaching me new things about animals in the most beautfully unexpected ways. This is one of the many reasons I will never give up on the show.
Tumblr media
[Unexpected angst in bagging area - Also, with the inclusion of No Name Dream, which will air two days before this episode, that brings our Krangstt quota to #2]
Okay so I really like the set-up here, and it genuinely was a surprise seeing Jimmy angst in this episode as a subplot in a series that rarely operates on A-plots and B-plots (unless you count the villains' schemes which are usually just A^2 plots) like most shows. And as someone who legitimately was going through rough times (S7 was actually one of my few reasons to keep going), I heavily related to Jimmy. So yeah, a Jimmy angst episode? Can totally buy. What I'm not gonna buy is how they execute it with the ending, because that and the implications.... yikes...
Tumblr media
C'mon! "Mudspitter" was right there! Right there!
Tumblr media
Ok, here is where my main problem with this episode's subplot is. If I could boil it down to one word, it would be: Incomplete. Jimmy feeling inadequate based on an observation he made is one thing. Him immediately leaving afterwards on a whim moments after said observation is completely another and doesn't align that well.
Like, this would only work if Jimmy had attempted to be a fish "IN" water. If he tried to help Aviva and Koki with the data-research and inventing, but he failed, and they politely turned him down. Or if there was any basis as to why he suddenly disregards his piloting skills or teleporting, whether he doesn't care or doesn't think them to be enough for him to fit in. Like, he wants to be in on the action because some part of him doesn't feel like sitting around by the teleporter is enough. What I'm saying is, there is no pathos. I personally find it to be relatable, but on a narrative level, it doesn't work. I know the "character feeling left out so they leave" thing is cliche'd, but there's a reason it's a cliche, and that's because it follows a lot of writing beats that this particular episode doesn't, so on top of being cliche'd as fuck to begin with, it feels very awkward. And this is going to be apparent both here and in this episode's climax (which I also do not have many kind words for,) so I had to use my allotted time to talk about why this doesn't work.
Tumblr media
Could... could they not call him on his Creaturepod? Could the brothers not call him on his Pod? Did he even have his Creaturepod?? Again, there are so many plot-holes in this B-story that could've easily been written around with a change of dialogue or scenery. Have Jimmy's Creaturepod be shown left lying around which makes them realize they have no way of getting him back to the teleporter in time. Jimmy would have no reason to even bring his Creaturepod on his adventure, so that just raises even more questions. Like, this isn't an active diss on the writers, but I think there should've been more proof-reading of the script since this is a massive oversight.
Tumblr media
I think now is the time for me to bring up this question I've had for years now; How exactly does the teleporter work? In several episodes, we've seen that there is a coordinate code in the teleporter that allows it to be sent to the target. Koki's "the communication queen" as Aviva puts it, so she'd likely be able to triangulate the brothers' location. So I'm not sure why the show presents this as a struggle for Koki. This isn't the only example, so I won't hold it against the episode, (they have this be the case specifically to emphasize the point that they need Jimmy, which I can forgive) but it's another piece of lore that I should probably theorize about lmao.
Also
Tumblr media Tumblr media
YOU HAVE LITERALLY TELPORTED THE CREATURE POWER DISCS FOUR TIMES.
TWO OF THOSE TIMES BEING IN A ROW.
AND ONE OF THEM WAS FOUR EPISODES AGO IN THIS EXACT SAME SEASON.
This whole episode spent the past five minutes making its main characters look incredibly idiotic for the sake of its B plot.
Tumblr media
Once again, this episode's spitting facts that I didn't even know.
This is actually a neat seguay, having the brothers figure out the abilities of the mudskippers while exercising their own cool abilities. It feels really natural, and again, is an inventive way to show off the locomotive abilities of the mudskipper.
Tumblr media
I feel like this falls very well between "accurate enough to be admirable" and "uncanny." I can (maybe on my deathbed) get used to this suit's design (though I'm partly glad Chris doesn't activate it because spoilers, he doesn't).
Tumblr media
I've given this subplot a lot of flack, but credit where it's due, even with its misses, it does hit with the emotional beats.
Tumblr media
Very conflicted on this:
On one hand, Jimmy actually taking the initiative to miniaturize is pretty ballsy. The show, despite not being serialized, does develop its characters in a way that you can sense a clear difference of them when you compare the modern seasons to the earlier ones. And this can be seen as a positive development for Jimmy, since it's his "Creature Adventure."
On the other hand.... back to what I was saying about consistency. Why did Jimmy bring the miniaturizer?? What was his prompting?? Was he planning on shrinking himself down the whole time? Like, he left his friends for god knows how much time and is now out of nowhere shrinking himself down to fish size because he feels inadequate? Uhm, Jimmy, ever heard the idea of therapy?
Also, again, very weird presentation of the episode. They don't at all put any attention to Jimmy's coms and whether or not he has them, (which would easily solve a bigger issue of why he's not contacted), yet they have him carry the Miniaturizer with him. Now, the latter is plot-relevant, but so could've been something about the Creaturepod.
Tumblr media
This [from what I interpret] gets Jimmy out of his slump, making his "scientific discovery." Not realizing that his job of piloting and teleporting are equally important. Again, this is structured poorly. I like what they were going for, but it shouldn't have been the only thing that altered the trajectory of this subplot. Again, he can teleport discs to the brothers and pilot and while those are mentioned later on, it's not something he comes to himself in an "oh shit" moment. So this just feels unearned and weird. I really hate how harsh I am, since it's a Jimmy centric episode and it was the #1 requested thing on all the chat-boards during the hiatus, but this is one of those things where it has to be done right if at all. This isn't done right, and the fact that it takes up 50% of the episode just... ugh.
Tumblr media
You can't tell it through screenshots but with the way Aviva says it and the scene cutting to her and Koki laughing at it, I'm 98% inclined that this was a specific innuendo, and ngl, I kinda laughed too.
Tumblr media
Oh look, it's Kenge's cousin! [For you Lion Guard fans that also recognize Wild Kratts] - [I was inclined to make a reference to Jessie, but that felt in bad taste considering y'know]
Ok, but that has to be an Asian water monitor. Correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm definitely not wrong about is that their bites contain venom; To a human it's not lethal, however to small prey, including mudskippers, or anything around that size, it's lights out. So yeah, Chris and Martin are fucked.
Tumblr media
Ok this line is absolutely badass.
Also, grey?? Grey?? I thought Jimmy's signature color was orange/yellow? Or red with the implication of the tail episode? Great, now there's another color that'll be in the debates for his future Creature Power Suit.
Tumblr media
Once again, this arc feels weirdly put together. This notion comes up specifically at the climax when it should come up beforehand as Jimmy realizes his worth. Because otherwise, it gives the implication that he knew this all along and yet still felt like a fish out of water, which doesn't mesh together properly (it could, if the episode actually tried to do so which it didn't).
The episode, Sea Otter Swim, does this plot so much better. We see Jimmy's doubts, and we see how he overcomes said doubts in a way that is presented clear to the audience, and the climax where he actually realizes what he's capable of feels earned. This is not earned. So even though I am rooting for him to win, this whole thing just feels messy.
Tumblr media
So is nobody gonna ask why Jimmy left his post? Is Jimmy not gonna tell everyone why he left, or at the very least ask why nobody bothered to call for him? Is nobody going to at least let Jimmy know that he can't just... abandon his post without warning because of the fact that they need him? Is Jimmy not going to come to that conclusion himself? Is anything in this episode gonna be earned??
This entire ending feels like an ass-pull: First off, Jimmy and the brothers had enough time to head back to the miniaturizer and then the Tortuga, and in none of that time, did Jimmy ever give them the Power Discs? Why? Yes, it was for the sake of the fake-out defeat/joke, but was there any reason why Jimmy just kept the thing hidden waiting to give it to the brothers?
The entire emotional climax to this episode is basically everyone putting Jimmy on a pedestal. It's unsatisfying because there wasn't any acknowledgement or follow up to Jimmy's conflict at the beginning, nor is the lesson learned in the right way, and the conclusion just overreacts by hyping up Jimmy instead of just having a reasonable "We're a team!" thing, or through any self-actualization of his good qualities that Koki pointed out. None of it, friggin' none of this is earned! Now it comes across as Jimmy being uncharacterstically boastful and cocky and the others just kissing his arse. That's probably not the intent but it was the result.
Tumblr media
That is actually like, so fucking cool. I have massive respect for all of these people, like legitimately (also, considerning that's the exact opposite of what Zach does on an ethics scale, I find that really interesting). But beyond that, I think this episode has the best live action segments ever, they are so ingenuitive. I could easily see someone at my high school showing a clip of this episode in robotics' or biology class.
CONCLUSION:
PROS:
The live action segments.
The info dumps about the mudskippers.
The Kratt Brother's adventure with the mudskippers.
The animation
The background music (a lot of which is recycled from earlier seasons)
CONS:
Everything else (specifically the B plot). I feel like the writers wanted to give Jimmy his own storyline, either out of interest or seeing how popular the character was in chat-boards, but they didn't know how to do it so they just went through the motions without really connecting anything at all, so it's a lot harder relating to the exact conflicts in some cases, and you feel disatisfied by the cimax. It reminds me of what they did with Vitani in the Lion Guard finale, a case of giving this one character the spotlight, but hitting all of the wrong marks that does the character and the audience a disservice and leaves a bitter taste in the viewer's mouth by the end credits.
This is the first episode this season that has made me cringe, primarily off of its premise, not just a particular scene, a dated pop culture reference, or a weird-looking Power Suit. It is the first to make me cringe because of its story, which again, the B-plot takes up 50% of the episode, so it's constantly in your face. It's definitely not bad, not hateable bad, and it's far too early in the season to call it the worst, and there are definitely worse episodes out there, ones that have aired and ones that probably will inevitably air, but I can safely say, thus far, it's the one Wild Kratts episode that I enjoy, but only to an extent. The live action segments were by far the only thing that I got extremely engaged in, but other than that, and the other pros, it's not that good.
Final Ranking: 6/10: Above Average, but Needed Improvement.
24 notes · View notes
Owlphibia Vs Disney Television Animation Next Era - When I Learned That Serialization Can Be Bad In Excess....
Tumblr media
The night i posted this, i didn’t bothered with it beacuse i was ready to hop on an airport to Acapulco for the weekend, returning on Tuesday evening, i was surprised by the many QRTs, Replys and Reblogs as the tweet went viral over-night to the point of cringy Tik Toks and YT Shorts where putting made up bs.
Since the announcement that Disney Branded Television will stop the serialized era at Disney Channel for the 2020s and from now on will focus on musical episodic comedies specially many of them created by Big City Greens with exception of Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur who was confirmed to be serialized later on, there has been some bias againts the current and future Disney TVA lineup for Disney Channel from the Owlphibia fandom (Owl House and Amphibia) this has been prominent since Q3 2021.
These past years i haven’t been bothered by that beacuse right now im 24 years old and im more focused on finding my first animation job after finishing college by next year and starting to save money for equipment of my art, to bother if people i don’t know cry if their favorite storytelling on the medium of animation for a multimedia company will go away
Tumblr media
However recently the Owlphibia community has been on a very toxic situation with future Disney TVA shows by simply existing that finally decided to speak up, specially with some things that have been bothering me with the community that i have been carrying since 2021 to a point where someone attemped to “cancel me” and decided to finally writte this over the following bs that happen during the Annies weekend where OPs pic scares away potential fans of both TOH and DTVA shows
1) TREATING BIG CITY GREENS LIKE THE SECOND COMING OF SATAN 
Tumblr media
Big City Greens is a curious case where a fandom hate goes so much, beacuse im tired of going to the BCG tag on Twitter and evey 5 or 3 tweets i see a Owlphibia fan hating the show beacuse the bitter truth “JEALOUSY” recently these people treat this show as a soulless project that only exists just to cancel serialized shows to give it more attention, BCG dosn’t have any fault of that, Dana has explained that the show was axed due Gary Marsh leadership at DBTV on 2020 or on 2021 where TC was delayed and the Owlphibia fandom was pissed that a BCG marathon was replaced instead.
Tumblr media
Im tired of repeating myself with this point but the show is very popular with it’s target demographic aka children who support the show legally as opposed to Twitter & Tumbrl who searches the latest MEGA as soon at is posted AND barely supports it’s official release on legal platforms,Bob Chapek’s LGTBQ+ scandal was a fair boycott and i respect it if that case made you NOT want to support any official release of TOH & Amphibia to give Disney money, if that was the case i completly understand.
However Big City Greens, the show and it’s crew dosn’t have the fault of being the cancelation of TOH or delaying True Colors as that’s illogical and dosn’t make any sense and if you have following me you know that im glad that their Alumnis like Natasha Kline,Cheyenne Curtis,Monica Ray,Amy Hudkins and Raj Brueggemann as well The Houghton Brothers mentor C.H Greenblatt will do their own Disney shows and being succesful with their own franchises as Disney has faith in them to make big hits and becoming next storytellers and honestly that’s fine, im sure you will love them and speaking of future Disney TVA shows...
2) APATHY TO ANY OTHER NEW DISNEY TVA SHOWS ON THE WAY.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
This where real tweets when these shows where announced and got me a laugh out of me, the first one beacuse on the same day Disney literally announced two serialized series for Disney+ under the Disney Europe Animation (The Doomies & Dragion Striker) while ignoring The Witchverse and Rhona Who Lives By The River and the second one was beacuse we literally confirmed that InterCats will be a more mature comedy for kids and teenagers ala Regular Show which explains it’s Disney+ greenlight.
Or recent attacks to The Witchverse for being a show about witches and being the major blamed for Owlphibia for TOH cancelation or Owlphibia fans crying when Phineas And Ferb announced a revival, being angry at Hamster and Gretel making a dark blood joke or throwing a tantrum over Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur aka a Marvel IP getting merchandise right off the bat and bothering Disney TVA excs on Twitter to ask them to break NDA to know if there’s a new serialized show on development.
I understand being afraid however things change as well and it’s very obvious that the era of Gravity Falls alumni-leading projects at Disney is over as S.H Cotugno and Emmy Circiega and others have left Disney for good now that TOH is over or that their development deal is now over however this dosn’t excuse to  look with apathy to this new era as this new shows might even surprise you and is interesting that other animation communities of other countries are open to this new era than American cartoontwt and cartoontumbrl recently one Facebook page from Latin America posted the first photo and the community commented on this with positive reactions with the new episodic era, here are some of the highlights
1 - In my opinion, it's good that they let this type of series rest with deep serious plots and deep character developments. The truth is, I was already fed up with those fandoms that fought with everyone and among themselves, defending tooth and nail every idea or theory that It arose throughout the series and that when it ends, the fans want answers about what happened next or they want a continuation of it, and they don't understand that if it's over, it's over, period.
2 - Well, I think it was time to put this kind of series to rest, over time they began to fall into the Adventure Time and Gravity Falls formula, it worked well, but perhaps that genre of storytelling in the medium needs a reinvention.
3 -  I feel sad that they are stopping these type of animated series with that format. Rebecca Rose said it months ago that this is the new approach because it is easier for the target demographic to get into the series and get hooked on a random episode that happens, but it doesn't mean anything bad ,there is Molly Mcgee and other projects that don’t look bad
4-  Serialized shows are good, but once in a while, you need a break, something simple, to watch over a meal and for that, the return of Phineas & Ferb is appreciated
5- I'm not saying that the GF-type "formula" should disappear, but that Disney itself stagnated with it...  Pretty much like the anime, the tropes started to be repetitive a lot like "a normal person arrives in a magical world and blah blah blah..." I think they can be more creative than that
6-  Im fine with it, at the end of the day Disney knows how to reinvent itself, this will not be the end of the company or Disney's animation units.
7-  People prefer to watch shows without following a plot so much, it's normal that they want to put that aside for a while.
As for me im pretty excited that finally Harvey Beaks/Big City Greens alumnis are getting their time to shine besides More Than Us from Disney Wish, Encanto’s song What Else Can I Do? is what represents what i feel with this new era:
youtube
Before finishing an aclaration with this editorial im not forcing you to like every new Disney TVA series for Disney Channel, im just asking nicely to the Owlphibia community to level down their hatred with other Disney shows for simply existing and direct your anger to older dumb excecutives instead of other shows who don’t have any fault of a cancelation.
Tumblr media
And be positive that at least that someone still greenlights original animated series in this sea of cancelations based on the betrayal of Netflix Animation and the mess that is WBD, Cartoon Network Studios WISHES right now to have someone as passionate on animation as Ayo Davis and Meredith Robers.
Tumblr media
Finally im my opinion overall on this is pretty much “Change can be difficult, but it's how we grow. It can be the hardest thing to realize you can't hold on to something forever. Sometimes, you have to let it go” and with this new era of episodic musical comedies by BCG alumnis well “But, of the things you let go, you'd be surprised what makes its way back to you.” -- Anne Boonchuy.
Take care and support animation - Seb
164 notes · View notes
It makes me really sad that somehow everyone is calling classics folks bad guys in this tournament. I'm scrolling through the notes of the poll, and for every Antigone voter being dismissive of a kid's show, there's one or two Ninjago fans calling everyone who likes classics and old stories pretentious, mean, and awful. Like, I won't pretend it isn't a shitty thing to dismiss someone's interests, but that goes both ways. For a large number of us, stories like Antigone aren't just fun media for us, they are our fields of study, our college majors, our theses, etc. To be called pretentious assholes bc we're passionate about something we have dedicated our lives to is really hurtful - just because it is something old, and something you might have had to read in class, doesn't make it automatically shitty. And while I understand the rightful offense that the Ninjago fans are feeling - bc being told what you like is silly and childish hurts, and it's ridiculous to generalize an entire group of media as worthless just because of the age of its intended audiencd - there are just as many, if not more, of them being just as rude to the opposing side. Which is all very silly on both sides because this is a tumblr poll!!! It's two randomized characters!!!! This has no real affect on anyones lives!!! But it is both sides being dumb and argumentative and taking cheap shots.
So then when Antigone starts pulling ahead (as a previous anon stated, a popular classics blog reblogged it within the same hour or so that votes started jumping up for Antigone, plus aforementioned relevance of Friday afternoons to Antigone voters, PLUS realizing that you are going to lose with only a few hours left isn't an uncommon situation to have increased voter turnout) everyone suddenly pointing fingers at classics fans and saying "You've been treating the other side so badly that I'm sure you have to be buying votes or using a bot to spam votes-" - I dunno, it just seems a little off to me. Like, there's nothing wrong with liking the Oedipus cycle, there's nothing wrong with liking Ninjago, but at some point it stopped being people going "Oh, my guy is more tragic!" it became this battle of "If you like old media and stories you're a classist pretentious jerk" vs "Why is a children's character beating a classic figure". The notes seemed happy to shit on Antigone and Antigone enjoyers, but now that Antigone is winning, it's suddenly "oh they're all assholes so they have to be cheating to win, the way they've treated Ninjago fans is awful." It's both sides! Both sides are being mean.
.
34 notes · View notes
waystarresourceco · 7 months
Text
So general question - how are folks thinking about day school vs boarding school for the Roy kids?
I think what we know via the show/script/interviews is:
Kendall attended Buckley which is a k-9 school
Per "Prague" Roman attended St. Andrew's, presumably a reference to St. Andrew's-Sewanee School in Tennessee which is a 6-12 middle/high school (where Roman was probably a boarding student given location)
Alan Ruck has stated he thinks Connor was shipped off to boarding school for most of his educational life
Based on this, I think I had assumed Kendall and Shiv had attended day school and lived at home until college, but in reading some old interviews I came across the below video clip where Sarah mentions Shiv (or maybe all of the kids?) might have also attended boarding school for at least some portion of schooling. On a semi-related note, there's also this clip of Annabelle Dexter-Jones mentioning that Naomi attended a mix of boarding and day schools which may be semi-relevant just considering Naomi's in the same wealth bracket as the Roys (although probably not in the same social circles due to old v. new money, politics, and a few other things).
So I guess where I'm coming out on this is...maybe Shiv also attended boarding school? I can't find anything where Jeremy mentions boarding or day school one way or the other but I could see a world where (a) all the kids attended boarding schools or (b) if they didn't all attend boarding school, Kendall is the one Logan is least likely to allow out of his watch if he was already "troubled" in Logan's view but still rotating it all in my brain (and would be happy to chat about/hear others views)...
Clip of Sarah Snook mentioning boarding school below the cut for those interested:
Q:  Have you as an actor thought about what Shiv’s childhood was like or maybe even had explicit conversations with Jesse about what did shiv go through in her childhood until we meet her on screen?
A:  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you sort of create a roadmap of imaginative kind of work in what their experiences would have been and what it is like to be shepherded around and farmed off to some – probably in boarding school overseas for a bit, or college overseas at least; or you know, holiday-house to holiday-house which none of them really feel like a home. I love that bit where she’s showing her dad all the houses and homes that they have and he just doesn’t recognize them. The monumental wealth that these people have which leaves them sort of lost and kind of displaced in the world, and especially if they don’t have a home, sort of family strength and foundation to call home.” (x)
33 notes · View notes
Text
Round 3: Chara Dreemurr (Undertale) vs. Jason Todd (DC)
Tumblr media
Propaganda below the cut
Chara Dreemurr (?):
They were constantly blamed for killing all of monster kind in the no mercy route, despite players choosing to go that route. People ignored that they sacrificed themselves to attempt to free the monsters from the underground.
----
everyone wants to blame their own actions (genocide route) on chara, who is a literal child. i don’t know how to tell you this but you are the one playing the game. it’s about YOUR CHOICES. chara is there is punish you for that, you killed the only family that ever loved them! how could they not be upset at that! also if you don’t mind, here’s a good video essay on the subject 
youtube
Jason Todd (~12):
Most of the Tumblr fandom likes this guy but if you step outside this website then wham so many people say he got what he deserved as a kid and Batman can't be cool if he's a dad so it's important for Batman to trash-talk his dead child constantly so we can all agree what a bad idea it was. Also wanna highlight that a lot of the records we have from fans at the time were clear they disliked Robin for BEING a child. Like a lot of the little dude characters in this tournament are treated too harshly for making an ugly choice and the fans aren't being understanding or sympathetic that the choice is made by a child character who is immature and not developed and strong enough to make a good choice and stuff. But THIS little dude was specifically hated FOR being a child. People wanted tough loner guy Batman not Batdad and his little buddy. The first Robin would drive back from college and guest star sometimes and be advertised as the Teen Wonder and people were like yeah okay but then Batman actually starts being a single parent for a child with needs and people were like UGH not the BOY Wonder. Today pretty much everywhere you see Batman fans saying Batman is better solo, no kid, it's not realistic to have a kid, a kid shouldn't be in the movies blah. Even if the comics they always find a way to send away the new kid so that Batman never has to parent. So all the Robins are being excluded from the narrative but I think this one is THE symbol of Batman fans hating a child character just for being a child.
-
Robin, Jason Todd, THE hated child character. In the 1980s, Batman comics had become increasingly dark and gritty. According to editor O'Neil himself, the courted audience wasn't kids but 19-40 year old men with disposable income. Batman's child sidekick, Robin, was offensively campy and childish. Fans called him wimpy, annoying, dumb, bratty, etc. Also people complained that Batman acting like an affectionate dad was unmanly and gay. Robin acts violent and emotional and people are like "ew he's so childish and emotional"—and then Batman literally acts just as murderously and emotionally within literally the same exact story and people are like "wow he's so dark and tortured". So in 1988 (after brutalizing Batgirl to get rid of her for being too bright and nice and kid-friendly), DC held a paid poll for fans to vote for Robin to live or die. O'Neil claims he heard a fan (a grown man with a dayjob as a lawyer) programmed a phone to spam kill votes. One fanguy claimed that he sold his Mercedes to buy kill votes (probably an exaggeration but still). By less than 1% margin, the vote decided to kill Robin in a spectacularly violent way. Anyway the 1989 Batman movie brought in a huge wave of new child comicbook fans who liked the new Robin (a very cool teenage high school Robin with a driver's license and a girlfriend), and DC started a separate Robin-less Batman series called Legends of the Dark Knight to make the anti-Robin writers and fans happy. But to this day, many fans agree it was a good idea to kill off the other Robin so that his foolish death reminds other characters to never be childish and stupid again. Bonus: the current Robin (usually a traumatized 10-year-old) has also been facing some pretty loud hatred for over 15 years.
21 notes · View notes
vintagegeekculture · 2 years
Text
War of the Generations: Kyle Rayner vs Hal Jordan Fandom (1994-2004)
Trenchcoat Edgelords vs. Gray Pony Tail Comic Store Guys
There have been numerous vicious fandom wars, but this is the only one I can think of that, with my own eyes, I saw lead to actual fistfights that drew blood. This is one of the few times I describe a fandom battle and it is not a metaphor. You’re probably unfamiliar with this fight if you never hung out at Android’s Dungeon-esque comic book shops, or do not have at least one weird unmarried uncle.
Tumblr media
New characters, even replacement characters for established heroes, show up all the time. So it can be extremely hard to explain why this one in particular led to literally a decade of the most ferocious fighting. Why did this battle between fans of a replacement hero and fans of his predecessor become as immense and nasty as it got, when other characters didn’t? Why did young Kyle Rayner, GL replacement, get controversy when Wally West, Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, Thunderstrike, War Machine, and US Agent never did to the same scale?
Well, many reasons, but the main reason is that it wasn’t just a battle over one guy, but over a whole idea of what two wildly different kids of fans wanted comics to be, a vision of what superheroes would be going forward. That’s why this otherwise picayune fight had incredibly high dramatic stakes. Where was the heart of comics? Was it in breaking with the past that often locked comics up and fossilized them, moving in dynamic new directions, streetwise, and relatable, or was it found in moving with tradition, with classic ideas of heroes and science fiction? Was it found in relatability, or big idea scifi? In other words, this was not just a battle of a replacement character vs. the original, but over what comics would look like in the future, which is incredibly high stakes, by two groups equally invested in the outcome.
Rather, the crux of the conflict between Hal and Kyle fans was a generational divide. This was, quite literally, a war of the generations. You only need to see the characters to understand that. Hal Jordan was one of the old guys; he was one of a few heroes from the 50s who was allowed to age gracefully, since he got gray hair at the temples in the 1980s. Kyle on the other hand, was a Peter Parker-esque quirky, handsome and relatable young early 20something, an artist in New York.
Tumblr media
To be clear, this was a huge, organized fight, not just people snapping at each other in the early internet and in comic book stores (although there was plenty of that). Hal Jordan, the original GL, had die hards so intense that they were in something called HEAT – Hal’s Emerald Action Team. And it was not a little fanzine group, either. It was more akin to a non-profit like the World Wildlife Fund, in that it had dues paying memberships (I was one). HEAT actually sponsored a scholarship for talented young art students called the Gil Kane Memorial Scholarship. They literally put out an ad in Wizard magazine for their group. Imagine a fandom group creating a college scholarship from their dues.
Tumblr media
It’s often very hard to discuss motive in conflict like this because we are entering the realm of the glandular, non-rational reaction. Ironic, because these two groups consider themselves rational men, but because they tend to have low emotional intelligence, are unaware that rationalism is caused not by ignoring your feelings, but by understanding them and holding them in balance. Okay, I honestly believe this: if they had replaced Hal Jordan and the other Green Lanterns with a girl, or with a tough black guy ex-army vet, it would have gotten far less hate from the particular group of people who ended up forming HEAT than a hot young guy who lives in New York and is a cool artist with an arty loft apartment like the characters in the musical Rent or the kids on Friends, and gets laid a lot with hippie chicks. Hot young guys are threatening to you if you’re getting older, and cool things are threatening to you if you’re uncool. And I honestly believe that is why, for example, books like the hip-hop infused Milestone Comics and anything by Christopher Priest absolutely tanked in the 90s: the guys who made up the comics store audience were turned off, even if books like the Crew and Static Shock vibed with the culture as a whole.
Tumblr media
Add to all of the above the general glandular-level hate born in envy that men have for a certain kind of attractive young effeminate guy like Justin Bieber or Robert Pattinson. People hated Kyle Rayner for the same non-rational, glandular reason guys hated Justin Bieber in the 2010s. Likewise, on the Kyle side, there was a lot of rationalization for why Hal was boring and lame, but in the end, it ultimately came down to a visceral, glandular reaction to a guy that reminds you of authority figures, like your asshole assistant principal who spent high school terrifying you, or your cold, evil dad. And I can certainly understand why, if some cat-piss smelling comic book gray pony tail who is a dead ringer for Gary Gygax corners you and tells you anything, you believe the opposite. Never underestimate the persuasive power of coming off as “normal.”
It’s important to mention that part of the reason this generation gap was so pronounced was that DC had a lost generation of fans. If you started reading comics in the 70s and 80s, DC Comics were marginal. We have a vague idea that DC and Marvel were rivals, neck and neck like Coke and Pepsi, with dueling superguys, but at least in the 70s and 80s, it wasn’t even close to a competition, Marvel was winning hands down. Once Marvel got their own distributor in the 70s, DC Comics were a nonentity, barely making up a single digit percentage of the marketplace to Marvel’s overwhelming chunk. The implication of this is that, if you’re a long time DC fan, you probably started reading in the 50s-60s, since there really wasn’t an audience of DC fans who came in the next few decades. When DC started to revise their image and creative teams, getting rid of the old man workhorse artists (Curt Swan, Jim Aparo, Dick Dillin) and putting out Marvel style books like New Teen Titans, there was a huge influx of people into DC in the 90s, especially with the rise of the comics shop in the 90s as the main place comics are bought. To say there would be conflict between the new guard and the old is an understatement, and this was the flashpoint this conflict happened.
Tumblr media
I mean, when Kyle Rayner fans called Hal fans “Hal’s Brigade of Loyal Virgins,” well, I hate to stereotype, but it stung because it is absolutely, completely 100% correct as a description of these people, almost always. If you really got invested in this on the side of Hal Jordan, you were obsessing over 2 decade old comics going back to the 50s, and the people who do this tend to be….how do I put this? Not normal. Especially at a time when comics were really marginal as a cultural force. Now they are at the white hot epicenter of culture, but no grown adult would admit to reading them then. Prior to 2001-2003 (Lord of the Rings feels like a cultural tipping point), if a woman entered the average comic book shop, they would draw gasps and all eyes would probably follow them. Because it seldom happened.
Tumblr media
There’s also another element at work that you only see among old DC fans that went into this as well that is underdiscussed. They are often allergic to heroes experiencing temptation, vulnerability, or making mistakes, so obviously they’re drawn to the all-wise noble 50s father figures who are never wrong and resolve everything with some weird science trick (“don’t thank me, thank the gravitational pull of the moon!”), and who tend to always win cleanly. This type of person often enjoys projecting themselves into people like that, to deny any temptations or unpleasant character traits in ourselves. I hate playing armchair psychologist, but this cries out for it. It’s like when Bojack Horseman steadfastly refused to admit that his childhood hero, Secretariat, was anything other than a noble sports hero, when he was involved in illegal betting and was corrupted by fame. So obviously replacing Hal Jordan with a mortal Peter Parker type who was extremely fallible did not give them what they wanted and expected out of this book.
Tumblr media
Alright, that’s the Hal Jordan fans, who are the Kyle Rayner fans? Well, like I said, in the 90s, comic book stores were at their peak. The Kyle fans were the young guys where the weekly comic store run was the center of their social world, the Kevin Smith types who tell bawdy Kryptonite Condom jokes. They wanted a relatable hero, and they put more of a priority on characterization and inner struggles over scifi explosions and time travel plots. They were also edgelords (to use a modern term) and loved rebellion. They also loved Japanese sword collecting. They tended to be fascinated by two things that came out at the exact same time: the tabletop game Vampire the Masquerade, and Mortal Kombat. In fact, no less of an authority as Rob Liefeld says that the reason comic stores went away in the 90s isn’t because of a speculator crash from people buying comics as an investment (which I always found utterly unconvincing as an explanation since I barely saw any speculators…how many could there be?) but because this particular audience, the Kyle Rayner guys, who went to comic book stores instead started to play video games instead.
They had very good reasons to want to be edgy and rebel. Since the cold war was won and neoliberal capitalism victorious, the system seemed all powerful and monolithic and invulnerable. As Margaret Thatcher said, “there is no alternative.” No wonder the culture was dominated by both rebellion and conspiracy theories about people in power (e.g. X- Files).
Tumblr media
What’s more, in the 90s there was a strong desire to break from the past. It was all seen as slightly embarrassing. If you were a Star Trek fan in the 90s, you may remember that the original series was absolutely fringe and impossible to come across. Next Gen made a point to reference it as little as possible. There were barely any original series toys or merch as compared to today, as people were just embarrassed of the old show. TOS  was like a crazy old uncle at the family reunion nobody talked to. And it wasn’t just Star Trek, either. Take the 80s icon, Hulk Hogan, who people absolutely hated in the mid-90s and booed, which is why turning evil was the best decision he ever made. When Doctor Who was canceled in 1989, nobody cared too much because it was seen as cringey and embarrassing and cheap, and the reaction was more surprise it was still on than shock it was canceled.
Tumblr media
There’s something else, too. Nowadays, we have a much slower rate of cultural change: something from 2002 is probably more similar to something made today than something from 1982 is to something from 1962. In 1994, a comic from 1964, where Hal was created, must have felt like it came from the Old West or Victorian England.
This weird theme of generational conflict, because comics had a strange dual audience of old Gygax-esque gray pony tail guys and trenchcoat wearing edgelords who love Lobo and Mortal Kombat, absolutely defined the 1990s in comics, which is why comics from that era sometimes don’t make sense when read by normal people. Most of the time, the comics took the side of the gray pony tails because the guys creating this were gray pony tails, the ultimate example of the winners writing the history books. Mark Waid and Alex Ross made a generational battle the theme of Kingdom Come (one of the numerous reasons this comic didn’t age well) and he made an explicit point to not use Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern in a way that was so assholic that I actually kind of weirdly admire it.
Tumblr media
There was one guy who used Kyle Rayner a lot: surprisingly, Grant Morrison. He saw Kyle’s Peter Parker like vulnerability and uncertainty as a strength to the character. The fact he was new, and a bit defiant of having to bow to tradition and held back, made us sympathize with him (yet another metacommentary). Kyle was overawed by the League, and in his words, “it was like playing with the Beatles.” To this day, there are a lot of people who turned around on the character because of his role in Morrison’s run on JLA. 
Tumblr media
This is probably not exactly going to surprise anyone reading this who have followed my blog for a while, but I was on the side of the traditionalists then, and I was a Hal guy. I felt that the best thing that comics had going for them was their history, and to make a break with that, so cleanly, was a pointless waste. Remember: they didn’t just get rid of Hal Jordan, they had to do it in the most alienating way possible, turned a childhood hero heel, and they eliminated the scifi weirdness of all the funny space monsters. Yes, the GL Corps was clearly a product of the 50s and 60s, staffed with bugeyed monsters and Flash Gordon looking planets, but it had big cool scifi ideas in outer space that were at times legitimately breathtaking, ones that the more Spider-Man like Ron Marz GL stories didn’t have. Nevertheless….
Tumblr media
As strange as it sounds, looking back and revisiting all this almost two decades later, I find myself having a lot of unexpected sympathy for the Kyle fans and their position. If you’re young, old people are terrifying and the power of tradition is absolute. It feels like their ideas have a death grip on the world and they have the power to crush anything new you might come up with or ever aspire to be or do. I wonder if, in today’s world, where everything is a reboot of the same 10-15 eighties movies, younger people might feel this crushing weight of the past on them even more sharply than ever. “Why can’t we tell our own stories to describe the world around us the way previous generations did? Why is it that if I want to make a dramatic show about relationships, in order to get made, it has to be about friggin’ Archie and Jughead? Why can’t we have our own heroes the way generations before them had?” I mean, after all, even Hal was not the first Green Lantern, but a 50s update and rejiggering of a World War II character. Why does nostalgia have such a grip over us? Hal vs. Kyle was the beginning of that kind of fight and I have a feeling the biggest one is yet to come. 
Tumblr media
As a rite of passage, every generation gets to kill the previous one’s idols. Why? Because sometimes the old people are wrong. I remember reading Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest albums of all time, and at the top they put Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. It was controversial (personally, I don’t think it’s even the best Beatles album, really) but what added fuel to the fire was how Rolling Stone explained that decision: “you had to be there, man, the album changed the world.” In other words, it was up there because of Baby Boomer nostalgia and that generation’s total cultural dominance for a long period of time. I think guys who say the Beatles actually suck are unpleasant tedious edgelord shitheads, but I get it, I understand the desire to pit your living will against the dead hand of tradition.
The most extraordinary thing about the Kyle vs. Hal conflict is that it (mostly) ended. I never expected that. This is astonishing to me, I expected the ape inhabitants of a post atomic future earth to continue this fandom battle until the sun winks of existence.
Tumblr media
Why did this battle come to an end? Part of it was that a gigantic chunk of the Kyle Rayner audience simply vanished with the comics store collapse, as they switched to video games. In other words, HEAT just ended up winning by default. It’s not just that, though. The other thing that happened was that people acquired a different relationship to the past in the post-9/11, sentimental, non-ironic world as opposed to just kneejerk defiance. People started to rediscover old comics as valuable for their great creative power, and all the great works of the 2000s were like miniature primers on comics history, like Astro City and Alan Moore’s ABC. What changed in the 2000s is that people stopped calling them old comics, and started calling them classics. Around the 2000s, comics started getting a strange veneration about them, possibly because themes of good vs. evil and heroic purpose resonated after September 11th and the War on Terror, when the superhero movie came into style.
Most of all, it got resolved with Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern run. They brought Hal and all the other classic GLs back in a way that was, in many ways, as epochal and consequential as when Hal Jordan was introduced to replace Alan Scott. The GLs were recontextualized in an emotional spectrum with different colors. Nekron and the Weaponeers of Qward, the deep GL lore, as it were, which was mostly untouched since “Stainless” Steve Englehart left the book in the 80s, came to the fore. They simultaneously delivered modern-style action mixed with nerd nostalgia, at the best possible moment, the right book at the right time, when nerd nostalgia became a cultural force capable of moving mountains, right when superheroes became the white hot epicenter of pop culture. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that being on this book, the right one at the right time, paid for Geoff Johns’s house. Kyle Rayner of course, was right in the middle of this, his unique stature as the only GL for a while acknowledged, but let’s not kid ourselves, Kyle was pushed offscreen for Sodam Yat and Simon Baz.  
Tumblr media
The Geoff Johns GL is now a part of the background, a product of a moment where nerd nostalgia was starting to be a powerful force. It’s not a coincidence that Geoff Johns took over writing GL the same year the first vinyl funko pops were made (around 2004). All that was in the ether. And I think we are now starting to see a reversal of things. There was once something very bold, self-confident, and defiant when Geoff Johns had veneration for classic old heroes, but now they’re everywhere and took over the world, the overculture, the same way the inescapable boy bands were in the 2000s.
I am not sure what comes next, but the pendulum is starting to swing on this. The classic characters created by cigar chomping WWII vets are now a kind of oppressive overculture and things are bound to change, because they can’t continue going the way they used to. I’m not sure what form the next great cultural/generational battle will take, but I expect there to be a lot of anti-superhero stories.
301 notes · View notes
jupitersrising · 4 months
Text
How do we think Annabeth coped with going to college in New Rome? Genuinely. She grew up at a camp where she was sure every moment could be her last. If she didn't train hard enough, if she couldn't outthink a monster or beat a trap or plan accordingly, she'd die. Her friends would die, her siblings would die (she already lost Thalia, even though she came back. She lost Luke, even though he betrayed her. Not to mention the countless siblings that must have died in the war.)
But...it's not just that. I feel like we've talked about how Percy and Annabeth would feel when they saw a city of grown up demigods with great grandkids something that's literally unheard of.
How do we think Annabeth coped with actually life? I mean cleaning the house and doing the dishes. I mean making sure she made time for herself besides work. I mean filing taxes and learning to drive and going grocery shopping. (She'd probably never work a retail job, but if she had to for some reason, what about that?)
You'd think it'd be obvious at first: she'd do great. But really? She grew up at a camp where she knew she was going to die young—hopefully in a blaze of glory. Where she was raised by other teenagers, where she was raising the kids younger than her. There's a solidarity in that, that New Rome won't have with their military system.
Not only would she lose her community, she'd lose the family and friends she'd spent her whole life around. The campers that are still alive were there for almost all her firsts. She went to camp at seven, seven years old, those people are her entire world.
So, now she's eighteen and living with her boyfriend in an actual city for the first time. Think about all the struggles she would have? New Rome would obviously have dyslexia and ADHD accommodations, almost everyone there has both. But...that can't fix everything. Those dyslexia accommodations are in Roman, not Greek, so it doesn't help any of the Greek demigods. The ADHD accommodations might not even exist because of New Rome's army. I feel like they would've been taught to suppress their ADHD and not let it get in the way of conformity and discipline (the roman way of fighting). It'd be seen as a form of weakness if they let those impulses take over them. (See how Jason and Hazel and Reyna act in the books. Though this could be chalked up to inconsistent writing.)
How does she deal with rigid scheduling of New Rome vs the lax, teenage-run camp of her youth? The discipline aspect can't mend well with her ADHD, especially when she's spent the last eleven years around people who get it. When she's spent the last eleven years not having to comply to "normal society" standards. Do you think she had problems with deadlines for classes she didn't like? Because she hyper fixated on architecture design, she wouldn't have had a problem with designing Olympus. But for her English class that she's has to take to graduate? No way, she'd procrastinate the hell out of it. What about waking up for her eight am when she has a really good idea for a new design and just needs a couple more minutes...and suddenly its hours later and Percy is home and she's losing participation points because she can't remember to go to class.
What about anxiety? Annabeth hasn't been around these people before. Not like at camp, where she knew everyone. That must ease the anxiety quite a bit. The social aspect gets easier because most everyone grew up with that little girl who stumbled into camp. She already knew Grover, and had Luke to hold her hand through social interactions when she was younger. By the time she got older she has that confidence in herself to be able to mess around and have fun with these people. But to New Rome, she's a war leader, she's a Greek demigod. She's an unknown variable that they don't know how to deal with.
How could she talk to them? None of them knew her as the kid who would take any dare. Or heard her ramble on and on about her hyper fixations to anyone who would listen. They don't see her prank the Stolls back (you can't tell me she wouldn't) or run through the strawberry fields after a rainstorm and get covered in mud for the fun of it.
No, all they saw was a war leader and someone who had clawed their way back from Tartarus. They saw how she spoke about the Gods when they still respected them. They heard that she traversed to Olympus all the time while she remodeled it. She spoke to Gods that none of her peers could dream of being in the presence of.
How could she make friends with those people? With people who didn't understand the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get here. With people who respected an institution Annabeth had long since given up on. With people who saw her for her titles and her quests rather than who she was as a person.
Looping back around, let's go to real life stuff. Annabeth had to pay for things on quests, but do we really think she knows how money works? At camp, everyone basically uses drachmas. And even then, their basic needs are being met. They don't have to pay for food, housing, water, etc. You can't tell me Chiron takes the camp van to the mall whenever year-round campers want clothes. They're either bought for them, or the Aphrodite kids make it, or one of the older kids goes out with the camp credit card and just...buys the whole store to bring back. Drachmas are usually only used for bets and dealing with entities on quests.
For the first time in her life, (since she was seven and really seven year olds don't understand how money works, not matter how smart they are. Plus Luke or Thalia would probably be the ones buying stuff, since they were older and it'd be less questionable if they walked into a store by themselves than a little kid.) her basic needs aren't guaranteed. If she fucks up, it's her fault. Do you think she drained their bank account buying something at the store (because, again, she hasn't really gone to those other than when she's on a quest) and had a panic attack over the fact that she, Annabeth Chase, who commanded armies over two wars, who was known as one of the greatest demigods to date, just fucked up big time? Because she wasn't used to having to spend the money on rent and textbooks and supplies for her architecture business. Because food was always there for her to eat when she was hungry and the water always ran and the lights never went out? Do you think that after all this time she forgot that stuff like that wasn't always going to be there?
She grew up thinking she was going to die young. She was going to die at Camp Half-Blood where those things would always be in full stock.
What about the apartment? She's not used to having her own kitchen, or bathroom that wasn't communal. Do you think she sought out the snacks her siblings liked before remembering that she siblings weren't there, they were hundred of miles away in New York. Do you think she knew how to clean an entire house? How to keep a house clean? Obviously as Head Counselor of the Athena Cabin, she'd make sure it was clean in time for inspections. But did that include kids using chemicals to deep clean? Did that include remembering to vacuum under the furniture every so often, or did they leave it since Chiron didn't look under there. (Again, everyone here is teenagers at the oldest, they're not gonna want to deep clean). Do you think that she didn't pick up clutter because she was so used to rushing last minute to make sure her and her sibling's clutter was clean in time for inspections that the thought of doing it regularly just...never crossed her mind?
Also, driving. We know Percy learned for Paul when he turned fifteen (aka the iconic horse hooves on the hood of the car scene), but who taught Annabeth? Did any of the older campers know? Did Luke? They either got drove around by Argus or didn't leave. They had pegasi to fly around camp and boats of war. Who was going to sit down with fifteen year old Annabeth and teach her how to drive? Especially with the war getting close. Nobody would have time, even if they wanted to. Who was going to take fifteen year old Annabeth Chase to get her drivers permit when they were making plans of attack instead. After the war, Percy went missing and all her time was taken up looking for him. You can't tell me she took driving classes when she was tearing the world apart to find him.
We also know Annabeth doesn't like to have to depend on other people. Since they either died or betrayed her. So how would she feel walking into a world where it's hard to get around without a car. Buses can be inconsistent and close early. Idk about a subway system in California, but still there's that dependance on other peoples' schedules. She'd have to have friends drive her to and from places, but again, she left most of her community behind in New York. She can't just use Blackjack to get around if she goes into the mortal world.
I'm not sure, I'd just like to see more explorations of Annabeth dealing with mundane tasks she never learned how to do. I want to see the impact of living when she thought she was going to die young and not knowing how to deal with adult things. I want to see how she reaches to the institution of New Rome and how people treat her. I want to see how she feels when she never thought she'd have to pay taxes or worry about apartments and yet...there is she.
20 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
PROPAGANDA
Dahlia Propaganda
"The fandom hates her so bad. She's the antagonist of the trilogy, so I understand some dislike of course but they hate her SO MUCH. she's a 14 year old girl with a twin sister, she gets dragged into crime by her cop step sister and her pedophilic teacher, dahlia betrays them both, steals the money for herself and abandons them. she slowly goes on a downward spiral in an attempt to protect herself. at college age, she kills her step sister and the teacher in an attempt to not be found and charged for the past crimes. the defense attorney for the case questions her testimony and she poisons him. the rest is just her continuing on that path and killing, attacking or blaming anyone who threatens her safety. this is a BASIC reading of her character. The fandom cannot understand this. they think dahlia seduced the teacher and that she's a crazy bitch. the games themself hate her. there's a male character who's so similar to her but WORSE (no backstory) and the fandom fucking loves him. But, dahlia? she's hated so much for no real good reason. I'm not talking dislike of her choices, but calling her a crazy bitch and refusing to look into WHY she acts like that and what lead to her demise. it's so ridiculous."
"she is based"
"Hell, she was fucked over by the writing itself, too. She's written to be this cold, unfeeling, master manipulator and was portrayed as the one at fault in a relationship she had with a 20-year-old when she was FOURTEEN. She's basically treated as this evil temptress who makes boys fall in love with her and then hurts them. It's. It's pretty bad."
Yukari Propaganda
"YUKARI PROPAGANDA: SHE IS LITERALLY SO CORRECT ABOUT EVERYTHING. People call her a bitch for uhh [checks notes] having a a brief freak out after she's shown live footage of her father's gruesome death? For [checks notes] accusing Mitsuru of lying to them about important information (which turned out to be COMPLETELY TRUE, by the way, but fans still mock her for this)? For [checks notes one last time] being mean to Junpei, who gives as good as he gets with rude and sometimes sexist comments in response? And even then, several times she apologizes or reassures him that she was just kidding when he seems genuinely upset by her words, so it's not like she isn't compassionate towards him. She is also routinely mocked and villainized for (huge spoilers) wanting to risk it all to attempt to save the protagonist after he passes away saving the world. To be fair, this turns out to have been the wrong choice, but let's be real -- she was a grieving teenager trying to save her friend slash crush. Yes, she was emotionally all over the place during The Answer. Of course she was! THE WORLD ALMOST ENDED AND HER FIRST LOVE HAD TO DIE TO SAVE EVERYONE. LIKE, THAT JUST HAPPENED TO HER. And everyone somehow just expects her to behave perfectly rationally when she's a 17 year old girl who just lost someone important to her and also almost died with the rest of humanity. Girl is traumatized and grieving and all people can do is call her a hysterical bitch or whatever other shit they wanna come up with." (by @ragecndybars)
"she's NOT a bitch she has a hard time opening up to people + she's a 17 year old dealing with grief after one of those people dies leave her alone!!"
31 notes · View notes
Text
Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 1, Side B, Match 19
Tumblr media Tumblr media
propaganda under the cut!
Boyf Riends:
Submission 1:
honestly, how could you not get their appeal? michael and jeremy were friends since they were kids, and they do weird nerd shit together because nobody else gets them. they like old retro games, weed, and 7-11, which means they're perfect. the thing is, they're fun to ship together not just because of their shared trauma and love of one another, but because their relationship is just the kind that a lot of people would like themselves; having somebody who enjoys your company and accepts you for who you are (even if who you are is a bundle of mental illness) and just *gets* you. all i'm saying is there is no better love than the kind that comes from two absolute fucking weirdos smoking weed in a basement playing the old zelda games. now a downside to this ship i will say is 1) that jeremy in the musical throws michael away like a piece of gum and 2) the fandom is a musical fandom which means crazy ass yaoi bitches. but the good news is that not only has the musical explained decently why jeremy did what he did, but also the fandom is dead! dead as hell! there are like 3 people left. which honestly makes it more needed that more people know about these two
listen they may have zero chance but please. they are everything to me (and me in 2018 when those silly little musical animatics were making the rounds)
Submission 2:
Because they have boyf reind backpacks <3
Avocados At Law:
They were roommates in college and opened up their own law practice together so they could help people and they've known each other for years but Matt has been hiding his identity as daredevil from Foggy. So much love and support in their relationship, so much of their lives they've spent weaving their lives together, they're practically married already, but it takes Foggy finding out about Daredevil, it takes /breaking/ their relationship for them to finally reconstruct it into something romantic. Not because they weren't interested before!!! But mostly because Matt was afraid, and he was holding himself back. Also also also Matt has major sensory issues (is super power is super senses) and uses Foggy's heartbeat to ground himself <33
40 notes · View notes
hezuart · 1 year
Note
Why did you switch from animation to reviews? Also, do you still plan on doing CGI like you mentioned multiple times?
oH BOY..... you may need to sit down for this one
So it all started back in 2012. I was around 14 years old and just saw Rise of the Guardians and Wreck it Ralph. The stories, the characters, the world-building, the animation... now I never really went to movie theaters as a kid, but as a teen I started going and I instantly fell in love.
I went to community college for a few years and made some amazing friends. Loved some of my teachers and we participated in fun events like the 24-hour challenge and Campus Movie Fest. I had gotten in the top picks for Campus Movie Fest at some point and was supposed to go to the Cannes Film Festival in France to showcase my short film, but then the pandemic hit and it got canceled indefinitely.
So get this, for community college, I got a certification in 3D Animation and Video Game development. It's basically an AA degree but without general ed. (Why do you need general ed to get a degree in something? Math and PE have nothing to do with Animation. College is ridiculous. People have to pay you more simply because you were forced to spend more money in college. Wild.) Out of the 20 classes I had taken to get this certification, only 3 of those courses were hands-on 3D animation. And only one of those courses was hands-on video game development and I dropped out of that class because it was PC only and I only had a Mac at the time. I applied to the class without realizing it was accommodating only to PCs. So even my certification is barely reaching the basics for the title of it, but I did take another online course or two for 3D animation which I have a different certification for.
Now even with my 3D animation, I was never taught the physics engine. I was never taught hair or cloth simulation, but I do have modeling, rigging, animating, and texturing experience. For gaming, I have very little experience. I've only modeled things and found my way around Unity, but otherwise, I suck at coding. I hate coding with a passion. Making a video game without coding isn't really possible.
Now, when the pandemic hit, a lot of things were shutting down. I had no idea where I wanted to go next. People kept asking me where I was going for my higher education, but I kept getting warned not to waste money on college if you're trying to become an artist, especially at University. It's a money pit, and competition is so high, you're not guaranteed a job, you're just gonna be in debt. Even colleges like Cal Arts, who charge over $1K per class, I've been told are a "Pay to get in" kind of place. Where the money is used to nab professionals from their work to teach students or talk about their company or programs, and through that, you get a bigger chance to get your foot in the door because you know someone. I've unfortunately been told that's the more realistic way to get into animation: networking. If you're a shy introvert who doesn't know any famous people, you need to be extremely talented and unique to stand out to get the chance of being noticed. I don't really want to suck up to people nor do I want to waste thousands of dollars and 5 more years on college that I may not even need (let alone be able to afford) especially if there are online classes that may be even more valuable.
Now after I got out of college and started applying a few places, I discovered a LOT of unfortunate information.
Most animation these days is done overseas. South Korea, India, Japan, and Canada are the big ones.
Invader Zim, Steven Universe, Miraculous Ladybug, The Simpsons, OK KO, Star vs the Forces of Evil, Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts, Adventure Time, Twelve Forever, and the Powerpuff Girls Reboot were animated in South Korea. The Ghost and Molly Mcgee is animated in Canada.
(The first four seasons of the Simpsons were animated in America until it switched to South Korea and India.)
2D traditional animation is no longer viable. Puppetry is the industry standard because it's the cheapest. Luckily, Toon Boom Harmony has allowed us to push the boundaries of 2D puppetry. Puppetry these days, if done well, can look really great, like Tangled the Series, but if you don't have Toon Boom Harmony, you're probably not gonna be hired.
Tumblr media
Not even all 3D is made in the USA. If it's Disney, Dreamworks, or Pixar, then it's usually USA. But streaming service movies, like Sea Beast, Kid Cosmic, The Willoughbys, and Klaus, while they claim to be a "Netflix Original" that "Netflix Animation" animated, that's a lie. Klaus was animated by Yowza! Animation in Canada. The Willoughbys: Bron Animation, Canada. Kid Cosmic: Mercury Filmworks, Canada. Sea Beast: Sony Pictures Image Works, Canada. (X)
Go Go Cory Carson is written and storyboarded in America, but the animation is shipped out to be done in France. Sonic Boom is also French Animated.
Even Sony Pictures? Open Season, Surf's Up, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, SMurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Over the Moon, The Angry Birds Movie, Sea Beast? Sony Pictures Imageworks is based in Canada. They're doing all the animation for them. It's not animated in America, it's merely funded by them.
I should also clarify: I only want to participate in stylized animated media. I don't want to do CGI for hyper-realistic films, which eliminates most of the animation jobs out there these days. It's just not my thing. The insane amount of details and uncanny valley are just so unappealing, I can't do it.
The closest animation studios are still far away. Most companies are located in LA. I'm over 7+ hours away from there. LA also has a high poverty rate, terrible air quality, is overcrowded, and is just generally not a good place to live, especially if you're low middle class. You're not gonna survive there.
Pixar is located in Emeryville, a few minutes north of San Fransisco city. Emeryville is the most crime-ridden city in that area. They tell you not to walk home alone at night. You're more likely to get robbed there than anywhere else according to the population ratio there. There are a lot of gangs that hide up there, and there's a lot of poverty there, even outside of San Fransisco. It's basically a trash pit. Not an ideal place to live, and commuting through 3-hour SF city traffic is also not gonna work. (X)
I have also been informed some people who work at Pixar are petty that the interns use their facility. Pixar has a heated pool, soccer field, gymnasium, and a few other nice things on their property. I was informed there was a person or two who got mad that an intern was using their basketball court.... when the intern was on break. As though they weren't part of Pixar, as though they had no right to touch the property. Apparently, they also used to make the interns push around little tea carts to serve refreshments as a way to "talk to the fellow animators" to probably get them interacting, but hearing that the interns were basically chored with butler duty to bother the animators hard at work seems like such a forced thing. That makes me uncomfortable. Of course, the person who told me these stories has been working with Pixar for over a decade or two now, so things could be very different as the years went on. Pixar itself on the inside of the animator building is gorgeous. They all decorate their office spaces in crazy ways, it looks like a movie set. But they have a bar and "whiskey club". They're apparently allowed to drink at work and have often had parties that got a little out of hand. There's also an old chain smoker room where the founders used to play poker and spy on people outside of their room with hidden cameras; I've even been inside. I don't think they use it anymore, though I'm not totally sure. Some of this info was fascinating, but the drinking made me uncomfortable. I kinda want to work with sober people here.
The sex ratio in the animation industry is also interesting and unfavorable. 70% of the animation and art school ratio is women, but only 34% of the actual animation workforce is women. 34% female to 66% male. More women study animation than men, but more men get hired and hold positions than women. Animation, ironically, has always been a male-dominated workplace. This unfortunately contributes to the "you have to know someone" or "be rich" to get-in situation. Men know a lot more men and not as many women. So the 30 to 40-year-old guys hire the other guys they know rather than a young poor girl with a passion. This makes it even more difficult for me to get in. (X)
Tumblr media
20th Century, Netflix Animation, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Bento Box, Vanguard Animation, Universal Studios, Titmouse, 6 Point Harness, ShadowMachine- all LA / South California.
There are a few places I could apply to, but what they do, I just don't care for. Niantic(Pokemon Go), Lucasfilm(Effects), Whiteboard Animation(Marketing), Sharpeyeanimation (Marketing), EA games (Mass Effect, Battlefield, Dragon Age 2, all those hyper-realistic war, sports, or fantasy games.)
So whether it's outside of the USA or within the USA, I need to move. I don't have the money for that yet.
Just find a company that does remote work, right? It should be easy, especially in pandemic times! Wrong. Most animation companies don't permit remote work. It's probably a security issue. But I've done research on this. The only big animation company I've found (so far) that allows remote work (or is HIRING for remote work) is Mainframe Studios in Canada. They have a 3D animation job list, and I guess they focus on animating Barbie movies(???). (X) But that's about it. And even if you're a remote worker, there's a high likely hood you still need a Visa to be allowed to work for a company belonging to another country. So that's a whole other legal process to deal with.
Disney is becoming a huge corporate monopoly over American animation. They bought Blue Sky only to kill them off. (Disney also just recently laid off 7,000 people due to their stock price drop and failed movies they released the past year with deliberately bad marketing for political reasons. (X) Disney also bought Pixar and is pushing for sequels because weird or bad, sequels and terrible live actions make them a LOT of money. Did you know Disney's terrible Lion King CGI remake is amongst the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever made? It's criminal. (X)
Because Disney is such a big name in the USA, there's a huge association of animation = children's media, which is not true. Animation at the Oscars also has its own category, when it's not a genre, is a medium. Disney often wins at the Oscars too because no one sees the other animations. Granted, Disney has an insane marketing budget in comparison, but it's clear no one cares to seek out animation outside of heavy CGI live-action these days. No small-time studios, no limited releases, no anime. The fact that Disney also now OWNS the Oscars is SUS as hell. (The fact that Disney-owned ABC threatened the Oscars, forcing them to cut 8 categories or else there wouldn't be a show that year is wild. There isn't even an oscar for stuntmen. What the fuck, Hollywood?) (X)
Dreamworks nearly went bankrupt and sold itself to Comcast back in 2013. Comcast also owns Illumination. Dreamworks has been focusing on making bad tv show adaptions of their IPs. So yes people, Jack would sooner meet the Minions than meet Elsa. Disney is the biggest corporate monopoly, but it's definitely not the only one. The animation industry in America is snuffing out its competition by buying it out for itself. It's insane the kind of power they have.
Competition is HIGH. Because of this, the only ways to get in? If you're rich or you know someone. Pixar gets over 3,000 intern applications every summer. Less than 100 are seen by actual hiring managers. The most interns Pixar has ever taken in a single year were 12. The least they ever took in a single year was two. A 12 to 3,000 ratio is not favorable. That's a 3% chance to get into a big-shot animation company.
And again, because remote work isn't permissible to new hires, you need to live in the area to commute to the campuses. This is one of the reasons why LA is so crowded.
If you get into an animation company purely remote and maybe even for a different country? You are the luckiest person alive.
Programs are expensive. The animation industry is very strict on what programs they use. The industry standard for 2D puppetry is Toon Boom Harmony; the industry standard for 3D animation is Maya, and the industry standard for video game development isn't as clear but Unity is one of them.
Some of these programs are free, as long as you are a student. If you are attending college or a certain online program, you can use your school-issued email through them to apply to get the program for free for about a year. Otherwise, if you're using it to make your own animations solo?
Autodesk Maya: $225 a month or $1,785 a year (X)
and guess what? Maya removed its free render service. Arnold is now built in by default, however, if you want to BATCH render (Meaning render a full scene or several slides) it will slap it's ugly watermark over it.
Tumblr media
Fun fact, this very rendered watermark can be seen accidentally in a single frame for the Kingdom Hearts Frozen cutscene
Tumblr media
Well, you need to batch render if you're trying to animate so let's see what Arnold costs- $50 monthly to $380 annually.... are you kidding me?! The rendering PLUG-IN BUNDLED TO MAYA COSTS MORE TO USE THAN THE OWN PROGRAM?! (X)
Now, there are other rendering plug-ins you can probably use with Maya. But they all have their ups and downs and their own costs as well. (X) Pixar's Renderman is $595 per license. I can't seem to get info on Octane. V-ray solo is $39 monthly while premium is around $60 monthly.
Now there IS Blender, an alternative to Maya. It is free and I have it. That is ideal to work in for people like me. I tried it a while back, but I hated the interface windows. It was hard to work on it when you can't close them properly. It's possible they've fixed this in an update, but I haven't touched the program in over three years so I wouldn't know. It's different from Maya a little, so it has ups and downs in comparison too. But Blender is a savior to 3D artists everywhere.
Toon Boom Harmony isn't as bad but still high: Lowest price is $27 monthly / $220 annual and the highest is $124 monthly / $1,100 annual (X)
Unity has a basic version that is free, but Unity Plus is $399 yearly while Unity Pro is $2,040 (X)
So some programs are clearly more viable than others. But imagine you're trying to model, texture, rig, animate, simulate, and render a short film all by yourself in Maya. That's gonna take you over a year or two, and you'll have several thousand dollars out of your pocket by the time your free trial ends. And might I say, for an industry-standard program, Maya sucks. It's almost unusable without those plug-ins for not only rendering but also for the models to even be able to SELECT their BONE rigs.
Do you want to practice on your own when school is out of session? Fuck you! Fuck subscription services! Welcome to capitalist hell, baby!
Again, using Blender is more viable, but you're still going to be basically doing everything yourself. That's gonna take years. Do you have the patience for that? Do I?
Because of the pandemic, movies aren't even hitting theaters anymore. They're going straight to streaming services. Streaming services of which, gain sole rights to and can take media off their platforms at any time without warning. Thanks, Discovery+ ! Does everyone remember the HBO Max Animation & DC purge? It could happen to other streaming services too. Piracy will save the future of animation at this point. (X)
And again, Streaming services like Netflix will purchase films and claim they made them by slapping their logo over it; but no, they either bought the distribution rights or produced them through funding and maybe storyboarding. Often times from a Canadian film studio. (Link again X)
Even stop motion companies like LAIKA are losing money and may have to shut down or be bought out in the future, especially considering how much work and money they put into their films vs. how much money they actually make. (X)
All of this? Naturally made me fall into a depression. My god, the layers of hopelessness. My animation and modeling is pretty average too. I'm decent. I can maybe make a good shot. But I can't blow people away like James Baxter can. I mean, I shouldn't compare myself to people. If I worked really hard, maybe I could get into a good company. But again, I have to move! A part of me gave up. I don't really do 3D animation anymore, though part of me misses it.
I still 2D animate. I'm trying to make a short film and though my college friends who were working on it with me have given up, I have done my best to keep going. Even if it has been produced at a snail's pace for the past three years, I still intend to finish this animation. It's gonna be beautiful when it comes out, and it will be a wonderful portfolio piece regardless.
So with nothing else to do and no other kind of job experience really under my belt(plus my family is prone to covid so getting a job in the pandemic was just kind of out of the question) I decided to go to youtube. I heard some people can make a little money on there, but the truth is I had actually wanted to become a youtuber for a few years prior. I've always looked up to animators and reviewers on youtube, I've loved the stories they tell and their incredibly detailed analysis essays on movies, tv series, books, etc. I wanted to be one of them. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd do, so I just followed the Youtube Partnership program set up which took a few months, and then jumped in! I found I only had the time to upload once every month or two. I had a ton of audio issues and I'm not outputting at the proper 1920 x 1080 quality that I should be doing either. It's a huge learning process that I still haven't perfected, but I'm taking notes to try and get better.
Even though Youtube is fun, I only make $300 a month, and that isn't even consistent. With patreon, I make maybe another $80 or $100 on top of that, so overall $400 a month average. That's really nice and pretty cool! But it's not enough to survive.
Now I work part-time at a coffee shop. My mental health is a lot better and I love my coworkers. I make roughly $400 a week in comparison to the $400 a month. It's still not enough to live off of (the cheapest rent around is over $1,000 a month, not ) and it's still a temporary job in the long run. I intend to work here for maybe another two years to save up money.
But what do I do now?
Am I welcome in animation spaces anymore?
As a critic of popular media, it could be likely that they could fire me or deny my application because of my critique of their past films or tv series. They could see my youtube persona and assume I'm a raging untrustworthy nitpick instead of a passionate, kind person.
Vivziepop's Spindlehorse company? What Viv was doing was a dream. I was so inspired by her. She made her own company, made a super successful pilot, and was even creating more jobs for traditional, high-quality animation. However, for Hazbin Hotel, she required more funding, which is why she sold it off to A24, who now has corporate say in the show. A24 is known for letting creators be more lenient, but otherwise, Viv won't have full control over it anymore unless she managed to get them to sign something over to her; but with the rumors of her being kicked off season 1? I don't know anymore.
Her own company Spindlehorse; they rely on youtube revenue and/or merch sales to fund Helluva Boss. That's a tricky business practice, but it's kept them afloat so far.
However, Spindlehorse is hiring a lot of people as of late. This could be a bad sign; that people might be leaving the company due to potential mistreatment or unhappiness. With the way the show is going, I don't really want to be part of that company regardless, but maybe before season 2 of Helluva Boss, I would have considered applying. Had I made any critique videos prior, there's no way they'd accept me. "Aren't you that one YouTuber that said my writing is bad for season 2 episode 2?" And you expect me to hire you?" Like yeah, that application process would go down well. Not. By critiquing artists' work, some of them are very sensitive. I'd be kicked out for a lot of things, when really, we artists should be critiquing each other all the time, trying to improve. That's how the writer's room always is, ahaha... hours of fighting goes down in those meetings. It's intense, but fun.
But yeah, it's such a shame. Even small companies need to sell out to corporate to survive. Either that or be HEAVILY crowd-funded, which again, can be a slippery slope.
I see a ton of small projects on Twitter looking to hire people, or looking to become a big studio to release a pilot or game. I've joined a few of them, but most are unpaid because of COURSE they are, and then these projects?? Just don't go anywhere. Because it's unpaid. Because we can't afford to work on a project for free. IRL comes first. Some of these projects seem so great but they don't go anywhere, and it's hard to have faith in start-up studios anymore. (Game creators might have a chance, but tv series or films? Good luck, folks.)
At that point, should I just make my own company? I don't have the money or knowledge for such a thing! It's insanely expensive to start a business and get licensing. So much paperwork, so much everything! And the USA Government is so behind in understanding technology. If you want to create a remote business and/or copyright something, you're still required to put an advertisement in a local newspaper about it, even if your business isn't selling to locals. 💀 The number of fees and ridiculous legal hoops you need to jump through... it's a ridiculous waste of time and money. But you need to do it. The question is, am I willing to do it? Am I willing to tackle such an insane thing by myself?
I want to keep my internet persona and IRL persona separate, but can I? I value having a private, quieter life away from the screen. I worry about getting doxxed one day because of the nature of the internet. I worry about people finding my IRL resumes or profiles for work I want to do outside of youtube for security's sake. My art style is unique and very recognizable. I don't have a lot of private art that is worthy of being in a portfolio. But for absolute safety, I'd need to password-protect my websites or portfolios so the public doesn't have free access to them; only companies I'm applying to. But at that point, does password-protecting my resume and portfolio make it less likely I'd be hired due to the inconvenience? Due to the private, hard-to-find nature of my work? Being a YouTuber with great story skills and art skills with a fanbase could be a big plus to getting hired somewhere, but it could also be a horrible disadvantage that would get me fired. It's a double-edged sword that I cannot work around and I don't know what to do.
I've considered the video game industry, but even that isn't ideal. A lot of the indie ones I adore aren't made in the USA. Gris and Monster Camp were made in Spain. Ori and the Blind Forest: Austria. Hollow Knight: Australia. Little Nightmares and Raft: Sweden. LIMBO & INSIDE: Denmark. Outlast, Don't Starve, Spirit Farer, Bendy and the Ink Machine: Canada.
SuperGiant Games did Hades, Transistor and Bastion and is located in SF, but they're not hiring. Janimation, a multi-media company located in Texas isn't hiring. Frederator in New York isn't hiring.
I don't want to work for a studio that does nothing but first-person shooters or sports games. If I want to get into the gaming industry, I probably need to crowdfund and make a company to make a game myself.
If I make my own game, which I've wanted to do for a long time now and still want to... I can't code. I guess I could try to hire someone that could? But a game to the extent I want... I'd need to start small. I'd need to practice. It's several years of work. Will it even be worth it? I don't think I can do it alone. I'd need crowdfunding and workers; which again, here comes the "make my own studio" issue...
Do I even want to animate anymore? I prefer traditional animation in comparison to puppetry. I prefer 2D animation to 3D animation simply because it is more accessible. But even then, I'm finding myself drawn more and more to writing, storyboarding, and character design. If I were a 3D animator, this is mostly what I'd be working with all day: Naked models in an empty room. I'd do none of the physics simulation or texturing or lighting.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Animating naked & bald people all day... I don't know... 3D Animation kind of lost its appeal. You only work on such a small portion of a film, you almost never have the bigger picture. You won't see the final result until the film is done. As an animator, you're almost kept in the dark. Maybe that's how they want it anyway, since leaks are a huge issue they keep quiet under strict NDA.
But yeah, anyway... I'm an artistic digital generalist. I can do almost anything. 3D animation, storyboarding, writing, photo editing, illustration, rendering, modeling and so much more. It's hard to choose what you really want to be in this industry. I feel like Barry Benson dfklgjdflkjg
Tumblr media
I don't know what I'm gonna do anymore. There's gotta be a solution to this but I just can't figure it out. I don't want to give up my youtube channel so I can be an animator. I don't want to give up a safer, quiet countryside house to be able to survive financially. Am I even willing or able to move countries? Is my career more important than friends and family?
I think I'm thinking too much about everything. I should start small. Move less than an hour away first and move in with roommates to get a feel for independence instead of jumping into it immediately. Get a job at a small time company, maybe not for what I want at first, but it'll get me some experience and maybe I'll learn some things along the way to understand where I can go next. Take it slow and don't panic too much over trying to be a young big shot. Take things one day at a time? That's my current goal, I suppose.
So you know... to answer your question... why did I switch to youtube for a current career? Because of a classic existential & career crisis in my 20s. Will I ever go back to 3D animation? Maybe. Maybe one day.
81 notes · View notes