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miapcain · 17 days

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I feel like you've probably read a lot of medieval history stuff. So have you, and if you have how do you think it impacts your work on vesna? p.s. I'm reading a Medieval Life by Judith Bennett and its an awesome read so far can't recommend it enough

Hello! Thank you for the ask!

I read a lot and have for a while. Vesna is the composite of a LOT of interests of mine, many of them specifically historic and regional. I've always been interested in the medieval period, and I loved Pillars of the Earth when I read it as a teen (still like it, the second book especially, though I take issue with some of Follett's character work). Name of the Rose too, naturally. Recently I've enjoyed Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, and the game Pentiment. I like the ASOIAF books, which are obviously less interested in intricate medievalism than tone and complex political and personal interplay, but imo aren't any worse for it.

In terms of non-fiction, currently reading "Felix Austria" by Stephan Vajda on that front. I love The Once and Future Sex by Dr. Eleanor Janega too. A lot of my process for Vesna involves researching specific points, though- I was trying to find out how exactly rushes worked, and stumbled on a 19th c. text which documents rush-bearing in certain parts of england and goes into the history, for example. I try to read as much of this stuff as I can. The region Vesna is set in doesn't get much materialist history done to it. It's very hard to find out what sort of agriculture was practiced in the hills at the time, for example. Even Felix Austria, a pretty hefty book, mostly brushes over it and says "life was on the whole easier and fruits and crops more abundant than in other parts of europe at the time," which is a bit meagre.

Visually, it's influenced by whatever visual art I consumed recently. I read Dungeon Meshi and fell in love with Ryoko Kui's solid figure drawing and character designs. I read Berserk and fell in love with Miura's landscapes and shading. I played Dark Souls and fell in love with the intricate architecture and tranquil emptiness. I visit ruins and castles here in Austria whenever I can, ideally one a week, and forests and rivers even more. I already mentioned Pentiment, but I have a huge reference folder of 13th century art on my pc. My biggest artistic influence is probably Socar Myles, who does better hatching work and dark fantasy illustration than anyone I've ever seen.

For the character work I would have to point to my best friend Digital Poppy's work. I liked her games before I knew her, and actually getting to talk to her about them (and helping make them!) opened my eyes to what you can have characters do in a story.

I hope this answered your question! Sorry i don't have a specific text to point to!

bonus: Vesna appearing in one of Digital Poppy's games

#asks #vesna asks #vdtwof meta #thank you newarc

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hotwaterandmilk · 5 months

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Just another one of those posts where I do a bit of a general update on a few things. This time opening with an edited scan of Maomao from Nekokurage's Kusuriya no Hitorigoto manga adaptation to get your attention. Boo!

I've been reading the Kusuriya no Hitorigoto light novels and enjoying them in the sense that I think preteen me would have liked them. I started reading the LNs earlier this year (as they're great for reading in waiting rooms and the like thanks to their short format) and I think the LNs are definitely my preferred version of the story. The anime has a nice OP theme but is fairly middling otherwise and I don't go much on the art in either mang adaptation (though Nekokurage's art has improved recently and Maomao looks less like a giant-headed baby doll in the Animate bonus cards per my scan above). Maomao is the real draw in all versions so obviously I preordered her Nendo the first moment I could — bring on May 2024!

Speaking of translated light novels you can buy right now, the first part of the Oguni no Koushaku Reijō wa Tekikoku nite Kakusei Suru light novel was just released as A Young Lady Finds Her True Calling Living with the Enemy Volume #1 by Cross Infinite World (see here). It's a solid story that doesn't overstay its welcome and Bertine's business acumen is just *chefs kiss* for those after a competent heroine.

Once the second and final part of this is out, I'd love to see Cross Infinite World pick up another short (but unrelated) PASH! Books publication, Shiitagerareta Shuusai Reijou to Ringoku no Haraguro Kenkyuusha-sama no Amayaka na Yakusou Jikkenshitsu. The web novel version was quite solid but I haven't read the printed version yet. Yeah I like science ladies, what can I say? It would be so good to keep seeing interesting titles for girls and women being picked up for English release because I tire of isekai villainess stories (which imho peaked years ago with Watashi no Oshi wa Akuyaku Reijou) and there are some great little tales out there that do things a bit differently & just need to be shown to the right audience.

I'm so excited for Metallic Rouge in early January! While it used to be that getting an original property from BONES was always exciting, it has been a while since they've created anything I've really cared about but I'm hoping this will break the drought. If a show has Izubuchi, Kawamoto, Yamada contributing then you know I've got to be there. Plus a couple of lady leads in a SF setting? Trailers with some great action and music? I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much but I'm keen to give it a shot. If it isn't for me at least I can say I've given it a chance, right?

I've been terrible at sharing the latest about this year's Silent Möbius anniversary, but I'm not a news blogger and frankly very few people care so eh y'know, whatever. BUT I figured I should say something about FAIRYTALE PARFUM releasing scents for the key members of AMP this month (though Mana has been totally forgotten, it seems). You can check out the range here, there will be a launch event on the 10th of December in Shinjuku too.

Asamiya drew new artwork for the bottles and while I'd love to get Kiddy's perfume that nods towards her bodily acceptance in its notes, importing that stuff is just too much of a pain so I've settled for a tiny acrylic stand of Kiddy instead. Sadly there's no option to buy a set of stands so I just went "whatever" and grabbed just my best girl. Anyway, if you'd like a tiny acrylic stand of an AMP girl with extra weird proportions then make sure you check out the FAIRYTALE PARFUM website.

#personal #sorry for the long post #this is just y'know a bunch of stuff that didn't warrant individual posts #so here it all is in one big slab sry

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chickycherrycola · 4 months

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(no place like) home for the holidays

Its Christmas Eve! Which means its FINALLY TIME for me to unveil the very special project I've been working on! I got a Christmas-y, holiday-themed idea in my head several weeks ago that started out as a few loosely connected scenes, and eventually spiraled into a whole-ass novel 😅 and today I am so pleased to present my most recent labor of love to the Soul Eater fandom: (no place like) home for the holidays. Its centered around Soul and Maka visiting Soul's family for the holidays, and its fluffy, its sappy, its pine-scented, and its so so mushy. I really hope that if you read it, that you enjoy 💝🎄

As always, I gotta give a special shout-out to @moriohpissky for all of her assistance bringing this fic to life. Thank you Leah for the beta read, the idea bouncing, and the assistance with the lovely moodboard! 💕

I'll be posting a chapter a day until the end of the year, starting with Chapter 1 today!

Rating: T

Summary: After a bit of convincing from his overzealous but well-meaning older brother, Soul returns to his hometown in upstate New York for Christmas with his meister in tow. It's been more than ten years since he's been home, and along the way, he'll have to contend with more than just a long-buried past - travel delays, shitty motel rooms with less-than-ideal sleeping arrangements, Wes's horrible ugly sweaters, and, perhaps most daunting of all... his feelings for Maka.

Preview of Chapter 1 under the cut, or read the whole chapter on Ao3!

Ch 1: All I Want For Christmas Is You

His phone rings just as he’s realizing he might be the slightest bit inebriated.

Incoming Call…

Wes

The only reason Soul picks up the phone is because he's on his fourth cup of eggnog - or is it his fifth? Truthfully, he's lost count at this point - and he'd woefully underestimated the potency of one sixteen-ounce pour of eggnog, let alone four or five of them.

(A rookie mistake, honestly, given that this year's Christmas party libations had been supplied by Black Star.)

Before he can think twice about it, he's swiping the green answer button and pressing his phone to the side of his face.

"'Sup?"

It's perhaps a bit too casual a greeting, considering he hasn't spoken to his brother in… months, now.

"Well, color me surprised," Wes chirps through the speaker, and Soul can't help how he cringes in response. "Is that you, little bro, or do my ears deceive me? I suppose I’ve simply forgotten what your voice sounds like, after all this time."

"…Should've sent you straight to voicemail."

"Oh, yes, voicemail, I love leaving those,” Wes hums thoughtfully. “Do you know, I’ve even taken to writing out my messages before I call you. Pity, I was quite excited about this one.”

Soul removes the phone from the side of his face and holds the top of it against his forehead as he draws in a long, slow breath, in part to dredge up his quickly dwindling patience, and in part in an effort to stop the room as it perilously spins around him.

Goddamn eggnog. Goddamn his brother.

When he holds the phone back up to his ear, he asks, as evenly as he can:

"What do you want, Wes?"

“I should think it's fairly obvious,” comes his brother’s reply. “I want to talk to you, Soul. If the fact that I continue to call you once per week despite your insistence on not answering doesn’t make that clear enough.”

"Alright," Soul leans backward against the kitchen counter and crosses one leg over the other. "So talk. Here I am."

Against all better judgment, he brings the red solo cup back to his lips and takes a hearty sip from the spiked eggnog sloshing around inside.

If he must converse with his older brother, maintaining his current level of intoxication will at least make it a tolerable experience.

“Jesus, Soul,” Wes laughs. “Don’t make it sound like talking to me is a death sentence, I just want to chat. What’s new, how’s life, how’s the… what is your title again? Death Knife?”

“Death Scythe.”

“Right! Silly me. How’s the Death Scythe thing going? No ulterior motives, I swear.”

Soul narrows his eyes in suspicion.

“I didn’t ask if you had any ulterior motives.”

Read the rest on Ao3!

#soul eater #soul eater fanfiction #soul x maka #soul eater evans #maka albarn #christmas fic #cherry writes #an evans family christmas

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adragoninshiningarmour · 2 months

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A Dragon in Shining Armour's 12th anniversary

It's the 12th anniversary of A Dragon in Shining Armour!

First of all, thank you so much to all of you who have been reading. Knowing that there are people who enjoy reading my stories and receiving your support really means a lot to me.

Thanks to all of you. I'm grateful to all of you who have been sticking with me for all this time. It really means a lot, especially those that have been here since the beginning. Thank you to all new fans. I'm always happy to see new people finding my stories. To all of you, whether you simply read the chapters, like or engage on social media, review with your thoughts, or draw fan art of my stories - thank you so much! I can't say how much I appreciate it.

On one hand, I'm proud that I've been able to keep writing for all this time (even if I've been a bit slower recently). On the other, I'm a little disappointed that I still haven't finished yet. xD That said, I can see the end in sight. With less than 15 chapters left, I'm more determined than ever to finish Holy War. Sorry that it's taken me longer than usual to post new chapters. The end of last year and the beginning of this year were pretty slow for me. I'm trying to get back into a steady rhythm though, and I think it's working.

A little update: I'm still working on the final part of the latest chapter. I'm trying my best to write a little every day, and I think I'm making good progress. It'll probably be another couple weeks, but as long as I can keep building momentum, I should be able to finish it. Thanks for your patience!

#Digimon #A Dragon in Shining Armour #Holy War #ADiSA #Null Verse

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good-beanswrites · 8 months

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Ahh ive been reading some of your writings and they're just so warm and fluffy to read (if that makes sense??) Though i cant really express it in the tags ;; also if its alright, may i please request blanket with mikoto or tears with fuuta? - @erimnar

Omg thank you -- I've been so grateful for your tags! :)) And thanks for the requests, I had a lot of fun with these woo! I went with a real fun one for Mikoto/Blanket (once again, picture T1 minigram vibes) and I'll post a slightly angstier one for Fuuta/Tears soon 👍

“Mikotoooo, just share with Muu,” the girl pouted. “I mean it!”

He scooted out of her reach. “What are you gonna do, stab me about it?”

Muu’s jaw dropped, but there was no real horror behind it. “Maybe!” She lunged for him again.

After a strange rattling from the walls had woken some in the middle of the night, all the heat in the prison had seeped away. Es had left to fix it immediately, and no one had seen them for hours. In Mikoto’s opinion, they seemed better versed in law than plumbing and mechanical fixes. He had no idea how long they’d all be shivering like this in the winter chill.

The prisoners walked around all morning in a mismatch of spare layers. Mahiru giggled inside one of Shidou’s extra doctor coats, far too big on her. Mikoto hadn’t stopped laughing that Shidou owned extra doctor coats in the first place. Yuno’s stylish hats could be spotted on several of the prisoners, Mikoto included. (He’d given his own beanie to Kazui, earlier.) Fuuta had handed out a concerning amount of sweatshirts, and Muu had some fashionable scarves that gave enough warmth to be useful.

In addition to the ridiculous getups, they each carried their bed sheets around their shoulders. Mikoto was surprised to find himself the envy of the group.

A while back he’d requested a weighted blanket; he remembered finding one helpful when work got too overwhelming. Milgram had provided a fairly large one, though he felt it hadn’t worked as well here. He didn't expect it to cause a stir until Shidou pointed out that its weight would make it even warmer than his own. Following that, it didn’t take long to attract the small army of murderous children that were after him.

As he stepped away from Muu, Yuno leapt at his other side, ready to snatch the blanket off of him. Although Haruka and Amane were too nervous to make a grab at him, they stood anxiously nearby rooting for his loss. Mahiru had jumped in as well. Her quick movements forced Mikoto to spin around and draw it even closer around his shoulders. Caring less about the blanket, but always ready to tackle someone, Fuuta joined the scuffle.

It wasn't like Mikoto cared about the blanket, either. He had no issue sharing it with the others. He knew the attitude in the prison had been dropping recently. Despite the brief camaraderie from sharing articles of clothing, everyone’s mood had been especially bitter today. As physical discomfort added to their mental strain, things could go south quickly. The place needed to liven up a bit.

He stepped back from the blanket thieves, flicking the corner of it from Fuuta’s hands.

“Not so fast!”

Fuuta fumed. “You asshole…”

Yuno, meanwhile, seemed up for the challenge. “You’re quick!”

“I’ve had a bit of experience…” He flashed a wicked grin. Mikoto didn’t talk about his family much, but a few of the others knew he grew up on fairly good terms with a younger sister. His big brother instincts had developed just fine.

He darted this way and that. He faked and sidestepped and spun. As his opponents grew bolder, he ended up sweeping the blanket off his back. He swung it around the room with less effort than expected. He was stronger than he looked, and easily kept the girls at bay while wrestling Fuuta for the blanket. He let out a laugh as he fought back against all the grabbing hands. Taking advantage of the height difference, he lifted it directly over his head.

The position wasn’t the most secure, though. His taunts were quickly replaced by feigned cries as the others dragged him to the ground. As they pinned him down, a cheer erupted from Haruka before he covered his mouth. The others joined in the celebration as they claimed their prize.

Mikoto lamented, “you’re so cruel… you’re all so cruel…” It was good, he thought, hearing them all laugh.

The loss of his blanket wasn’t his only punishment. Heaving an exhausted breath, Yuno flopped down directly on top of him. She tucked herself and Muu into the blanket. Then Mahiru wiggled in, beckoning to Amane and Haruka. By the time they all nestled in, there was just barely enough room for Fuuta to squeeze in with everyone.

Mikoto wheezed from under the pile of prisoners.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “You win. Fuck -- let me breathe...”

Mahiru just made herself more comfortable. “But you’re so warm!” The others muttered their agreement. Not one showed any sign of moving. The prison was far too cold to give up heat like this, after all.

“That’s because you all made me work so hard!” He huffed. “Come on.”

“What are you gonna do?” Muu giggled, doing a poor impression of his voice, “murd--”

“-- Aw, shaddup…”

#milgram #mikoto kayano #muu kusunoki #and others #it was silly but i was still able to wiggle some of my serious headcanons in!#mikoto being able to read a room and know when and how to pick things up with a bit of charisma #him having great big brother/roughhousing/antagonizing for no reason instincts sdfdsfds #and having a lot of stress relief habits that he swears by - and then cant understand why they arent working #(because orekoto usually does all the stress relief with physical exertion)#oh and also the fact that hes really chill about joking about their situation in milgram sfdsdfgfd 💀#thank you sm for the requests!#and i mean it -- i was so happy seeing your tags ;-; ty for the kind words!#also ive been on this site for a while and its the first time ive seen that 'tagging a sideblog on an anon ask' trick so you get notified #thats so smart omg #ill tag you whenever i post the fuuta one #i know i dont have to do both prompts but theres no way im missing an opportunity to make my fave cry hehehe >:3 #drabbles

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dedusmuln · 4 months

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Hey what ocs do you have

YAAAAAAAY HI!!! ok so i have a . decent amount of ocs. but my most recent ones are my ace attorney oc, and my hylics ocs ^_^. I'm trying to work on ocs for an original story too, but those ones are highly in the works right now, unfortunately U_U this post got REALLY LONG , so i'm putting a read more on it!!! more oc info under there :-]

my ace attorney oc is Mirasol Armando, and she's the niece of Diego Armando . I'm forming a little backstory for her right now! the main idea for her was "wouldn't it be funny if phoenix had to face a girl who looks like both mia and diego combined?". she has a decent history of bad luck, and after getting kicked out from living with her parents' friends, she kinda has to fend for herself. she was planning to be a prosecutor, but after having a conversation with phoenix, she decides to become a defense attorney at his suggestion. the next time they meet again, she's actually graduated from law school!! yaaay!! i need to keep working on her but . I do plan to draw her soon my hylics ocs . i will admit they are less formed... two of them I have are actually named, the other i . don't . and i still want to make a fourth one after that. ludunsmde (pronounced loo-done-smeede) (they/them) is my splithead oc! as their name suggests, they are a sibling to dedusmuln and smuldunde. they're a traveling marine archaeologist by boat, who also finds themself fascinated by marine life time to time. gets easily distracted. if they were a playable character in the party, i think they'd be the hard hitter of the group, having a lot of power (similar to pongorma). i could see ludunsmde playing the bass, and also having interest in claves. i'm sure they'd play a handful of things. ludunsmde misses their family a lot, realizing that moving around so much is the one downside of travel. but they care about their work heavily, and are sure to plan visits time to time. oh yeah . as for physical appearance, they're taller than dedusmuln but shorter than smuldunde! their fur is a blueish color, with pink horns :-)

the next character (he/she) doesn't have a name yet . BUT! i've been calling him Imago for now in place. imago is the actual owner of the boat ludunsmde has been using ! she's a bit of a vagabond and travels pretty often , i'm not sure how she met ludunsmde , but they've been traveling with each other for a While. imago isn't specifically looking for anything, and having ludunsmde around for company is entertaining enough. they help with the heavy-lifting so he can't complain. i think imago is the healer of the party, not much of a fighter herself. i could see him playing the drums !!! kinda contradictory to his laid-back nature, but it's more of an outlet for emotions, since she's not much of a talker. imago is technically the 'leader' of the group but is the least talkative of the group. as for physical appearance, imago looks similar to somsnosa and instar ! is probably a bit shorter than them though. not exactly sure what her outfit would look like, but i'll figure that out eventually :-] ludunsmde and imago have a bit of a lgbt thing going on between them but idk what flavor yet my Third hylics oc is my wayne oc, named Absence (they/them). absence is a wayne that somehow managed to run away from training, and has been wandering around since then. absence does eventually stumble across imago and ludunsmde, and asks to join them on their journey. seeing someone so lost and confused, neither of the two really wanted to leave absence on their own, and let them join. absence is sort of just on a journey of self-discovery, trying to figure out who they are besides the life that they were supposed to live as a wayne. absence's name was suggested by ludunsmde after a long conversation about absence wanting to have their own name and own self, but not knowing what name would be right, feeling a lack of certainty. since there was an absent moon at the time, combined with their lack of choice, ludunsmde thought the name 'absence' would be fitting, and absence agreed. absence's fighting doesn't have anything specific, but they're relatively speedy, so they usually go first. absence is also , shockingly , the singer of the group. if they had to play an instrument i'd have to say electric guitar, like wayne. despite how different absence tries to be, they can't deny that electric guitars are cool as hell. as for physical appearance, absence dresses in a romantic-goth inspired fashion and also sports a full black outfit. they're also a bit shorter than some of the other waynes. absence has a relatively dramatic appearance, and that's on purpose. they have fun with it i also want to make a fourth hylics oc to complete the party, but i haven't chosen exactly what i want to do with them yet. i did think about making a poolmagne or a coutured oc but. im not sure yet. as for other ocs , i have some other ocs like Tango, Doe, Root, Narcissus, Lucas, Lucky, Eugene, Euadine, and . a lot of other ones !!!!! but i won't ramble about them because i've already talked a lot about these ones :-]

#answered #rezeptkapziv #long post #sorry i didnt mean for it to get so Long #but i ramble #my ocs #oc: mirasol armando #oc: ludunsmde #oc: imago #oc: absence #my textbox #sorry for talking so much ummm. anyways my little guys. i need to draw them.#soon ...

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letteredlettered · 8 months

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I'm conflicted about whether to encourage you to read the MDZS novel or not. On the one hand, it's revolutionary for danmei in many ways (to the hatred and love of many), and reading it would be akin to reading Jin Yong one day. On the other hand, if you love Wei Wuxian and find some actions in the show "unforgivable," you will be severely disappointed with him. For the sake of censorship, many of the "crimes/sins" he committed were passed onto Jin Guangyao so that the idea of "good" and "evil" are more clearly distinguished. In recent years, China has even censored some of its most popular works like Empresses in the Palace, Story of Yanxi Palace, for having heroines that were too morally grey. And of course, there were some actions too heinous to even be passed onto another character. Plus, consent is a little grey in the novel, and first times were simultaneously great and awful, prompting a sudden confession in dramatic areas.

But, I think even a bit more laden with the evils of this world... I still really loved Wei Wuxian of the novel. He tried. And failed. And maybe made things a lot worse. But as Lan Wangji said, his heart was in the right place. And... I think you'll feel a lot more for the Wen in the novel. They-- just the idea of continuous sacrifice and gratitude. I cried so much for them.

Sorry, you might regret it a bit, but I think it'll also make you feel fulfilled to read the novel.

Anyway, I hope your day is going well!

I'm already reading it! So you don't have to feel conflicted about whether to recommend it. :)

I don't think that liking it or not liking it will affect my interest in CQL or the fandom. I've been in many fandoms with multiple versions of canon; I find it's best to pick the versions that work for me and stick to them. Sometimes it can be frustrating when you love one version and hate the other version and it feels like everyone is disparaging the one you think is good in favor of the one that gives you moral hives, but I haven't really seen those kinds of comparisons going around, and this isn't Star Trek, so I'll probably be fine.

I'm a little flummoxed by this word "unforgivable." First of all, I find most things forgivable; I'm a forgiving person. Second of all, these are fictional characters; if someone does something unforgivable it doesn't make them uninteresting or unrelatable.

I don't dislike JGY because he does bad things. I am uninterested in JGY because his personality is boring to me and not something I find relatable.

I'm also a little flummoxed by the idea of not liking something because it is morally gray. I know I stomp around on tumblr.com a lot yelling about morality, but my basic moral philosophy boils down to "try your very best to cause no harm," which is something that is extremely gray, because there are no absolutes. There is no good and evil. There is only the effort to be kind and help each other, and it is shocking how fuzzy and unclear that can be.

I have hesitated to read the novels partly because I'm aware of the consent issues. I think it is important to have fiction that has non-con, including fiction that has very sexy unproblematized non-con that allows people to indulge in fantasies that would be unsafe and harmful in the real world. That said, I don't like it. At all. Not for moral reasons but because I find it singularly unsexy.

I'll conclude by saying that it's very true that I tend not to be drawn to villains as characters. It's less because I find them morally repugnant, and more because they are often uninteresting to me. I think possibly the thing that draws me to a character the most is effort, especially an effort to do and be good--but this is a personal preference, not a moral one. I identify with characters who try to be good, and this makes me like them. I enjoy them the most when they fail a lot while trying their absolutely little best. Personally, I've heard mixed reviews about WWX in MDZS canon; some report, as you do, that he tries a lot and fails; others report that he's pretty careless in ways that make me feel a lot less interested in him. Since I'm already reading it, I'll find out, but the main thing I've taken away so far is that these novels are hilarious. I can't believe how funny it is. What a delight.

#mzds #wei wuxian #morality

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ubercharge · 3 months

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im not sure if anyone asked you yet, but thoughts on the dunmeshi anime?

thanks for asking! sometimes i forget i exist here as a person cuz i just log on to queue random stuff without making posts 💀

it's pretty rare for me to watch an anime without ever reading the manga, and there've been stellar adaptations recently. ONK, kisekoi, BTR, frieren, CSM just to name a few. in a landscape where we're used to being disappointed as readers who have a frame of reference before watching a show, i had very, very high hopes for the dunmeshi adaptations that weren't quite fulfilled.

i'll dump everything under a cut since i actually have a lot to say, sorry if you were expecting it to be brief 😎

the lines in the artistic style are good, nicely translating the characters into animated format. really no notes there. definitely a nicer comparison for char designs between manga and anime vs. tonsuki and tensura who both have incredible manga styles that the anime stumble over (though in the latter's case, i don't think they were aiming for it sadly)

the shading has been fine, but weakened by the colour choices. some of the dungeon scenes (e.g., living armour stuff) are lit with a medium blue which helps to sell the idea of the scene being in a place not lit by fire (and contrasts it with the making camp & cooking scenes), but the lack of dark shading flattens some of these very well-drawn images.

the earlier chapters don't have the same level of detail as newer ones, but the art style is still fantastic - it's expressive with high contrast and shows action and impact perfectly well. manga will often times have a naturally easier way with contrast due to it being in black & white, but i don't think that means anime should just give up on contrast in favour of playing ineffectively with colour.

here's a night shot of fern from frieren. the choices made here allow for the shading to stand out from the flats and give her more definition overall while still being relatively simple (just flats + shading)

when dunmeshi has more "normal" lighting conditions, it does a lot better. similar to fern up there, there's about the same amount of difference between the flats and shadows, so i really wish they did a better job on the dungeon scenes since they're going to have to deal with non-torchlit scenes plenty. i won't argue that the living armor scene certainly has some kind of a sickly, alien mood to it, but tl;dr i think it should've had darker shading if not also being less green. this largely applies to every other blue-green lit scene they've done.

looking at kui's coloured drawings in the ed gives me an idea of what could've been and it makes me sad to lose out on colour choices more similar to that (even if they obviously can't have her level of detail on top of it)

some of the backgrounds haven't been too interesting but some have been good, overall it's probably fine. plus you can only draw and detail repeating bricks so many times before the viewer gets bored of looking at them anyway, i guess.

the animation is really fun and expressive. it's trigger, so they don't keep scenes stiffly on-model when they want characters moving around. this is good because it helps to sell both action and comedy moments!

the music overall i haven't really cared for? the BGM has not been particularly moving, interesting, or memorable - mostly generic. and i've seen too many fantasy shows for my own good, so i might be harder to impress (but i even remember tenken had a good BGM song or two to make a fight dramatic and that show was barely above average at best)

i'm biased not being particularly into bump, so i would've selected a different artist for the OP (i actually did like the bump OP from SxF though, come to think of it). before anyone makes a wisecrack based on what i've watched lately, no it doesn't have to be yoasobi.

i maybe feel the ED song would've been better for the OP, i don't like the largely peaceful bit of the OP with very still visuals. the OP is where you reel people in! it should be an eye-catching hook, representative of what to expect with some extra sauce on top.

the ED is great, total bop. it's a fine time for slower visuals as an enjoyable wind-down from the episode, so less or no animation is no big deal. plus kui's art is absolutely gorgeous! it all perfectly fits that "end of work" fun and lighthearted mood they were going for.

i largely enjoy the voice acting. i would've personally gone for a less "old man" voice on senshi because he's really not that old for a dwarf, but they obviously wanted to make it clear he was the older, wiser, knowledgeable character.

this might be my own personally most blasphemous opinion, but i would've picked a different VA for falin. i want to make it clear i absolutely adore saori hayami - she's incredible and one of my faves. with that said, her voice fits the character, so maybe it's just because i've heard her too often which is not her fault by any means! i love the voices for laios, marcille, and chil.

it seems netflix's subs go off of the official EN TL of the manga, which makes sense, but i've talked about how i don't like it more than ehscans' TL (which is one of the single best TLs i've read for a series, official or otherwise) and that holds true for the anime ("mad sorcerer" is cooler AND less clunky than "lunatic magician"). i prefer less localisation stuff and/or quirkiness in my subs and more direct translation for both manga and anime.

as for the changes/additions they've made to the show, some of them have been alright and some i didn't care for. they really want to sell marcille as the funny joke character which is why they had her being chased by the basilisk instead of having doni & fionil like it was in the manga which was better for the pacing and had good impact vs a funny clip of marcille running back and forth.

i don't dislike when adaptations add or change stuff, but placing them cleanly is important. dunmeshi is already really funny! i don't think it needs help being funnier by reaching for the cheap laugh. when laios sees two people running for their lives from a basilisk and he just goes "wow that's a bad way to run from that monster", it's already lowkey hilarious - all the more so followed by marcille telling mr. monster-know-it-all to go rescue them if he knows what's up and him rescuing them by making himself big and chicken squawking real loud (which embarrasses marcille and chil, but c'mon guys, at least his idea worked!). i feel like the comedy in laios' funny hero moment is undercut by forcing the marcille butt of the joke moment in the anime.

dunmeshi is already incredibly good at just about everything it does. i feel if an adaptation wants to add or change something, it's often better amplifying a strength or shoring up a weakness in the source material. BTR adds a lot to the source (not hard considering the source is a 4koma) and makes already funny things even funnier. the "we should all get social media" scene is elevated to iconic status with the visual of bocchi glitching out + the VA's inhuman screech. i can't say where i'd really want to change or add stuff to dunmeshi, since it really feels so good and whole, but i'm sure there's room in the process of translating manga panels to animated scenes, and i think the direction overall could've been better (comparing most shows to BTR isn't fair i know because BTR is directed & adapted so well it's hydrogen bomb vs. coughing baby territory)

i've mostly said negative stuff, but i don't want it to sound like i hate or even really dislike the adaptation. i think when it comes to a series you really love, you want to see the best adaptation possible within reason, and the disappointment of stuff not being quite what you were hoping for is amplified by so many other recent adaptations being so good.

dunmeshi does not have a bad anime by any means, but a lot of that is thanks to the source material's quality. if they do another season, i hope they have more time/budget/whatever because i think a lot of the parts it does have are good parts! but in this case, i wasn't hoping for good; i was hoping for great.

trigger makes great shows with wacky storylines (in some ways, the same one wacky storyline, but that's a different discussion) and dunmeshi, being directed by someone who's worked on a bunch of trigger stuff (largely sci-fi leaning), maybe needed some more direction from people who've worked on fantasy stuff? i can't say for sure what would've been enough to take the show over the top, but though i generally don't hope for much from adaptations, i really did have higher hopes for this one than it ended up achieving.

overall it seems i'll end up scoring the show a 7 or 7.5 when i finish the season, though there's certainly still room to wow us all. whatever you feel about the adaptation, whether you liked it or not, whether or not you've read the manga, feel free to comment your thoughts below or in my inbox. let's keep it free of manga spoils for anime-only watchers, though!

#sorry this is REALLY long #ask answer #anon #i've been busy with TEA in ffxiv but i'll try to post more!

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cosmos-dot-semicolon · 14 days

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An unhealthy basis for enjoying media

Rewatching one of my favourite video essayists' take on Avatar, and how a lot of people seem to be so emotionally invested in it to a almost religious degree. I have little investment in that show beyond its representation, but it kind of got me thinking about the times I've done the same with my favourite media. Luckily with smaller fandoms and hence with a far less toxic feedback loop, but still.

The main point she brings up is that people remember the show for what it represented, as a big, mature turning point for cartoons rather than the actually good themes about friendship and diversity in it. And I think that actually extends to worse fandom obsessions generally.

Something like Steven Universe can't be a show with legitimately great episodes next to some really terrible ideas we don't talk about. It has to be the most beautiful thing ever that will bring true art and social justice to the world.

...This probably goes for like half of left-wing YouTube and adventure fantasy shows now I'm typing it out, actually. She covers those a lot.

I don't have a point to make on those media, though. Their fandoms just reminded me of the past hyperfixations I've had that turned unhealthy: how it always ended up with deifying them into the greatest thing that ever existed in my mind, how I felt the need to vitriolically defend them against any differing takes because they were my personality.

They were a reprieve from the worst times of my life. But in retrospect that's not completely a good thing - I was using them to cope, but also avoid thinking about my issues at all.

The one I feel comfortable namedropping is the most recent one on Ninjago. I kinda just brushed it off as a result of academic pressure, but as I was reading more critique on it (and since was in therapy at that time), it eventually clicked that I'd been using it as a vector to escape thinking about my relationship with being Asian.

But it doesn't only happen from flawed media. My other major example was a game that is damn near perfect in its execution, but my interactions with it - absolutely mining it for as many ideas as I could, and spending all my time on it were just the only way I could think of to escape the crushing changes happening in my life at that point. It also lead to me having really weird headcanons and intrusive thoughts about it and not acting as considerately as I should've been around my friends at the time, both IRL and in the fandom.

I think you can almost always tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy attachments though. It just requires one moment of clarity and a bit of introspection away from the media in question.

My main advice would be... well, first consider therapy if you know you've dealt with a lot of stuff in your life. But barring that, my advice is that no one piece of art can capture the entire human experience, or even your personal entire experience. Or beliefs. Or fantasies. You should not rely on them as such.

Have multiple, varied things you like going into a hyperfixation, so you can draw on them if you need. It'll probably feel less immediately rewarding, but it stops you from feeling that you're eating yourself months in and being the living incarnation of the Boss Baby Problem.

It'll also feel more fun if you're a creator, because you can get some really original ideas by pulling totally different media together.

#dots dots dots #I get the sense most of the people reading my blog are more stable than I am.#but i thought this'd be interesting to write about nonetheless #especially since I am on a streak with essays recently #dunno what to tag this as but maybe it'll have at least one person reflect on their own interests. who knows

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thefirstknife · 8 months

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If going by the Destiny 2 content creator reactions and their fans of Lightfall then the greatest enemy to all is the concept of a Cliffhanger.

There people wouldn't be able to handle any non bing able media. If they had to watch Breaking Bad, any mystery story or what have you before Netflix i imagine they'd throw a fit

Yeah, I'm feeling the same. I genuinely don't know what people expected from a penultimate expansion. Talked about it before in regards to how the marketing for Lightfall may have been a little weird and how people ended up feeling misled by it, which is a fair complaint to have. But if we go further than that, I still don't know why people expected "all answers immediately" from an expansion that's clearly not the final one. We knew right away that this is not the ending.

This is a good opportunity to talk a bit more about some extra stuff which will be below, because I'm choosing mercy for people on mobile:

Another thing that gets me as well is that this is simply how Destiny always does the story. Like, it's a live service game and has been for 10 years. Campaigns are on a frequent hit-or-miss scale and aren't really all that expansive on their own anyway; a 3 hour campaign is NOT and never has been the totality of Destiny's story. As a matter of fact, like 90% of Destiny's story is told in written format with lore and side quests and other stories, not in campaigns. Campaigns are generally just the initial setpieces that shift the narrative in a certain direction with a singular event, but the majority of the story happens as consequences of that, over the course of years.

There's been so much stuff that we've been waiting for years to be explained. I always figured this as something that the Destiny community loves and expects. I got here only in D2 and only got into lore properly in Shadowkeep, so everything I knew by reading about Destiny's past story and community reception was that the mystery and the players coming together to figure things out was one of the main draws of the game. That's how I perceived the game, its lore and its community when I joined. As something where we work together to pore through texts to understand where things are and where they are going.

Actually, recently one of the biggest complaints going from Beyond Light and onwards was that Destiny has lost its mystery component. It's been a frequent and overwhelming critique of the story and seasons. How seasons are here to just quickly sum everything up in neat and presentable infodumps given to us by characters and lore tabs that tell us everything directly without any need for deeper engagement. This obviously isn't even fully true (Beyond Light's deepest mystery remained undetected and misunderstood by the majority of the playerbase and still is to this day (that would be Savathun replacing Osiris)), but overall yeah, certain things were absolutely streamlined in comparison with how lore was done before.

Like, no contest: frequent seasonal story drops that give us dozens of lore books, item lore, quest lore, dialogues and so on over the year that are easy to acquire and are readable in the game, as well as stories that happen weekly and are more engaging than just playing a 2 hour campaign every six months or every year have all done A LOT for the lore to be more approachable and less "mysterious." I put that in quotes because people frequently also misinterpret what "mysterious" means or at least aren't talking about the same concept. I've noticed that there's quite a bit of backlash for stories being resolved and character arcs being finished. To a lot of people, that's the removal of "mystery." In a sense, a lot of people want an endless story that never resolves but that gives just enough easily consumable fandom-related details that aren't really progressing the story in a meaningful direction.

But yeah. To end this tangent here, people have been complaining a lot about the lack of mysteries and wonder in Destiny. Which is just weird to me because that's just how stories work. At some point, the story will start resolving the mysteries. And yet, then came Lightfall which brought completely new mysteries and some of the most fascinating ones I've ever experienced in the entire Destiny setting and people just kinda... Didn't care. I attribute a lot of this to people just not recognising that they're no longer into the story all that much. They no longer want to engage with a mystery, they just want to see the conclusion. They don't have the energy or the interest to pore through the texts anymore or engage with the fandom or, indeed, wait for information to be revealed, especially if this isn't the type of stuff they like.

For example, there's a lot of fans of the type of gothic horror mystery about the Hive and Lightfall simply does not fit that aesthetic. And mind you, Destiny is famous for genre switching all the time so this is something that should be expected. But Lightfall's futuristic high concept scifi story that's about virtual realities, mind uploading, human experimentation with nanotechnology, bizarre alien entities that play with the concepts of consciousness and the nature of reality, and so on is something that a lot of people have no interest in. And as much as I want to say "skill issue," it's a matter of taste. It's completely normal to me that there's people who aren't into this. However, a lot of those people just refused to engage and then proceeded to say that the story is objectively bad, "worst expansion ever" and so on. Absolutely insane to me. Like, genuinely baby behaviour in my mind. The "upset because we're not about me" type. Meanwhile I've seen a plethora of people who have quietly, almost ashamed, admitted that they like this stuff more than Witch Queen. No one should be ashamed or afraid to say that.

And most of all, there was disappointment that a "new mystery" was started "too late" when things were "supposed to be explained." And first of all, things ARE being explained. Again, this is a live service game. It's updating over the course of the year. We've received so many explanations and threads to follow and read about and engage with while we wait. That's the whole point; keep the content coming over time. Second, for people who claim that "Lightfall's campaign wasn't complete," yes it was. The Lightfall campaign was to save Neomuna and stop the Witness from destroying the Veil. We did both of those, except the Witness deceived us (as it is known to do) and it never wanted to destroy the Veil in the first place; it wanted us to get there with a Ghost. And it ends with us falling for that deception (out of necessity of course: our hands were kinda forced. Brilliant deception in that regard) and losing to the Witness as it hijacks our Ghost and opens the portal (but we do end up saving Neomuna and have the Veil at our disposal now to start researching it). This is known as a plot twist: a big "oh shit" moment in the climax of the story where we realise we've been duped and we've done exactly what the villain wanted all along.

Which leads me to the third point, perfectly summarised by your ask and by a single word: it's a cliffhanger. Lightfall is the penultimate expansion in a ten years long story. It's a cliffhanger before the end. It's supposed to keep us wondering what the fuck happened and how are we going to solve this until TFS drops. It's supposed to question our place in the universe, our understanding of it, the nature of everything we've learned so far, the extent to which we were right and wrong about the Light and Darkness, as we prepare for the finale of the saga. I genuinely don't know which answers people were expecting to be delivered in a 3 hour campaign that would immediately tell you everything you need to know and then you'd put the game down for a year OR you would keep playing and seasonal stories would just be meaningless side stories that don't progress the plot (yet ANOTHER complaint about seasons that's been going on for a very long time and an unsolvable problem: people want seasons to be meaningful stories that progress the plot but also not meaningful enough so that they can be freely skipped without missing important story bits. These are contradictory statements. Both cannot be true).

And of course, it's completely normal if this just didn't work for people. It's an important distinction to make here; "I understand what it tried to do, but it didn't work well for me" is a completely different statement from "this was a bad story and the worst expansion ever." I've never seen this distinction being made as pretty much everyone only ever spoke about it in the latter terms. How the state of the story is awful and "dangerous," how the writers "dropped the ball," how things are horrifically bad and nonsensical and so on. In worst cases, it was straight up "Bungie should fire these writers." There's also a lot of people who claim wholeheartedly that they've understood the story, but then can't tell you what the theme was or they start going on about how Nimbus was a bad character who "wasn't even sad for Rohan," which immediately tells me they haven't finished the story. So I'm afraid I don't believe those specific types when they say that they understood it, but didn't like it.

Most of all, this was a REALLY long-winded way to say that this ask basically says it as concisely as possible: Lightfall is a cliffhanger before the end. It's SO important to consume more than one media and learn some media literacy. This isn't even remotely a long wait as far as cliffhangers go in general. We need people to stop expecting the media to get churned out mindlessly in quick succession for instant gratification. Hell, some would absolutely classify Destiny as being churned out quickly. And meanwhile we have players here losing their minds and crying and throwing things because they have to wait 3 months for a new season. Absolutely bizarre to me. Try waiting for a book series to continue for longer than ten years.

#destiny 2 #lightfall #ask #long post #if you click read more

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theromaboo · 7 months

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tag someone you want to get to know better

I was tagged by @just-late-roman-republic-things (dang you got tagged by catilina. cool)

Favourite color: Red :)

Last Song I Listened To: Havana in Classical Latin. Oh my gosh, it's so good! The singer's pronunciation is phenominal. I think I listened to this song a hundred times this week. The way I enjoy songs is that I find one that I like a lot and play it on repeat until I find another I like :)

Favourite Movie: Hmmmmmm... This is a very hard question. I don't really watch movies. But, I did watch Mio Figlio Nerone more times than I'd like to admit so I guess that's my current favourite movie!

Currently Watching: Nothing right now, but the second I'm less busy, I'm rewatching Domina! It's my favourite show by far. No piece of media has ever made me feel things Domina has made me feel.

Currently Reading: A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon. There are a few things I don't really like about it, but it's overall a fun book to read. And because this book is pretty much just a list of anecdotes about killings back in ancient Rome, it is definitely a good starting point for anyone who's interested in that. If you find an interesting anecdote, you can research more about it!

Currently Working On: 1) Art. Yesterday I suddenly got inspired to draw and I have been drawing a lot since then! Better draw as much as I can while it lasts! And 2) I'm currently trying to study more Latin and Italian. Those two are easily my favourite languages, but I'd have to say I prefer Latin over Italian (sorry Italian).

Current Obsession: I'm currently not in an obsession obsession, where I get so obsessed, I start getting worried about myself.

My ancient Rome interest was actually started by an obsession obsession. I got a bit interested in Claudius, then I got very interested in Claudius, then I got worryingly interested in Claudius, then I got interested in him to the point where the only thing I thought about from waking up to going to sleep was Claudius and I literally did nothing but think about Claudius and read books and watch videos about Claudius for like a week. A neat thing that happened is that I was unable to become bored from Claudius. My attention span is normally awful and I become bored very quickly, but this obsession managed to bypass that and so I was able to binge-read extremely long and dry and old history books about Claudius without ever getting tired at all. But then, when I eventually stopped being so obsessed with Claudius, I was already too far in and I had learned too much about Rome to ever go back. After that, I had a few other obsession obsessions, such as Britannicus, Caligula, Domina, Tiberius, but they were never as strong as the original Claudius one. I sometimes wonder what happened there, but I'm glad it happened.

However, right now, no obsession obsession.

But of course, I've had my early Roman Empire/late Roman Republic (but mostly early empire) special interest for quite some time now, and everyone I know would say that I am Obsessed with it. Recently I have been very very interested in the early years of Octavian (like everything Octavian did before 27 BC), which is honestly quite a bit earlier than I usually like. Nowadays I have been interested in earlier and earlier parts of Roman history! (aka going from really liking the late Julio-Claudian dynasty last year to really liking the early Julio-Claudian dynasty this year. It's a bit slow).

I'm tagging @germanicuscaesars and @athelstan-anglecyning and @scribl1ta and @a-passing-storm and @octavianiscougarbait and @alienmythologist.

#tag game

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galina · 2 years

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what are your favourite things to do/places to go alone? i've been alone a lot recently and being out and about really makes me feel a lot less lonely

wondering around the library looking at the collections—taking the bus anywhere, listening to music, pretending I'm in a film—long walks with my camera taking all the time I need to get the perfect light for a picture—taking myself to the greengrocer and buying all the freshest, greenest seasonal vegetables then going home and making myself a meal which is a complete labour of love—making a pilgrimage to a new café, settling in with a coffee, reading and people-watching for hours—trawling all my favourite second-hand bookshops, delighting in finding something in each one—going to a gallery and staring into the art until I don't feel like I'm real—making an iced matcha latte, lying on the grass in the park, enjoying the matching greens—long showers, a hair mask, a face scrub, all the fancy moisturiser and my dressing gown—lying in bed with a vinyl on the player and lavender in the diffuser—playing animal crossing or sims for hours—getting my hair washed and cut!—challenging myself to learn a new song and play it loudly even if it's terrible (hello rocket's tail)—dancing in my pyjamas in the kitchen—getting out the A1 pad from under the bd and drawing huge shapes with my whole arms—going for an early morning run and pushing myself a tiny bit further than I thought I could—going through cookbooks, bookmarking new recipes, making shopping lists for ingredients—going to the cinema to see something I wouldn't see otherwise—going to bed early and listening to a funny podcast that makes me laugh loudly even though there's no one but me to hear it

#this is such a good q I love answering this sort of thing

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moveslikeanape · 4 months

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i actually don't play disney magic kingdoms myself, it's just not really my type of game, but i've seen some gameplay of it and read a lot of the little dialogue from it online and it's always seemed really charming and cute! so it really is too bad we might never get to see tarzan characters added to it. i do play disney dreamlight valley on the switch, which is sort of a life sim game like animal crossing but with disney/pixar characters all living together, and a lot more of a story to it with quests you get to do for everyone. it's a lot newer and doesn't have nearly as many characters in it, but a recent update added a jungle biome that would've been perfect for tarzan and jane. i know they'll probably never be added, but if they were then they could live together in the treehouse and we could see how tarzan would feel about living in the valley among so many other humans! there would be so many new things that jane could teach him about.

i recently started collecting lorcana cards after seeing one of rapunzel wearing a green dress, which i found really cool because that was what she had in so much of her concept art! i was also pretty excited to be able to get cards from the emperor's new groove, the great mouse detective, treasure planet, and hercules. i bet they could make some beautiful cards for tarzan... but yeah, that copyright issue is incredibly frustrating. some of my favorite movies may be a bit overlooked or underrepresented by disney, but at least they don't have the legal problem that tarzan has. i guess with once upon a studio they must've wanted to really go all out to make sure every single walt disney animation studios feature could be included! i'm grateful they did, because it would've been a huge shame to see tarzan not even allowed into the special 100th anniversary short. the new movie "wish" also has a tribute to past WDAS films during the credits, where gold-colored drawings of characters from each movie appeared across the screen in chronological order. strangely they actually left out a handful of movies including the black cauldron, but they did include tarzan!

also, i'm sure you already knew about this haha, but just the other day i came across an article from a few years ago where several of the people who worked on tarzan were interviewed and talked about the production. and i learned for the first time that it was originally planned as a direct-to-video movie which would stick closer to the source material with tarzan going to england. i'm obviously very glad that that didn't happen and we got the movie we have now instead. -🌟

Sorry, was out of town for the weekend visiting family.

That's fair about Magic Kingdoms not being your type of game. I think the only real reason I play it is because it's something I can play casually and more of less keep up with, with out it taking too much time.

What I've seen of Dreamlight Valley looks like so much fun! And that would be amazing to see Tarzan and Jane in that game. Probably will never happen, but we can dream!

Ooo, I haven't seen that Rapunzel one, will have to look it up. I've always loved the concept art. So insane to think there's actually even Treasure Planet art in them!!!

Sadly we may never get Tarzan in Lorcana, but I found this artist during the Disemeber challenge on instagram, and he's actually done art for Lorcana. Looks like it was just the one card, Chief Bogo (which he's posted if you go though his stuff). May not be official, but at least here's a Christmas themed idea of what could be if they included Tarzan

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OMG, I never expected any reference to Tarzan in Wish!! I haven't seen it yet (live in a small town, starting to think we may not even get it in our theatre), but now I'm even more excited to see it!

Oh wow, I actually didn't know that! That's so interesting (definitely so grateful they didn't go that route though). Would have been interesting to see how close Disney would get to the source material… don't know if you've ever read the books, but there's a lot of not so family friendly stuff. Also would have been such a waste, given the quality of D2V animation, would have been such a shame to only get Tarzan & Jane quality animation.

#strangers like me #character: tarzan #adult tarzan #character: manu #fan: art

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vampireacademysims · 6 months

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Well, I guess it's time to address the situation... or the lack of situation lol This is gonna be long, be warned. There's a TL;RD at the end if you wanna skip the wall of text. To start, thank you to the two anons who took the time to read the comic and prod me about it and the new people who started following this tumblr in spite of the Hiatus warning. Altho this place has been collecting dust for more than a year now, I'm still around, updating my side reblogs tumblr, so it's not like I dropped from the face of the earth.

The truth is, at this moment in time, I've feel out of love with making this comic. It was always a lot of work due to me being a perfectionist. I never used any extra rendering apps, all you've seen here is raw sims images and a lot of work on Photoshop, so much so it gave me a muscle contracture on my right shoulder (because I did all my work in bed with my laptop/drawing tablet in my lap. I never said I was a smart person lol) that still flares up from time to time because I learned nothing. Then the VA fandom was already quite small by the time I started doing this in 2015 and I never really advertised this in the fandom anyway. I always got the impression most of the fandom didn't like the OG comics as it was and most of the people that followed the comic were sims 2 fans because, well, it's made with the sims and the images were pretty (forever holding in my heart the people you said this <;3) The recent "Vampire Academy" TV series (it was just in names, honestly) was the final nail in the coffin of my motivation. After information had leaked I was already disappointed in it, but after actually watching it, yeah no. Only plus to it was the surprise to see it was partially filmed in my country, in places where I have been myself. And lastly, and probably most importantly, I struggle with motivation a lot. It happens to us all, I am sure. It's no secret that I hated to panel, if I'd start all over again I'd just post the big images like many of you telling stories are doing now, it'd be less of a stress for me, but alas, I can't change formats now. And I said many times I was doing it mostly for myself, because I did love the comics based on the books, but doing it for yourself only gets you so far until you get bored. And I got bored. I'm actually surprised my hyper-focus on it lasted for as long as it did. I haven't been to Photoshop for editing - I used to make photomanipulations and other kinds of editing - for way over a year, so it's not only the comic that stopped.

I still have 7 pages to end chapter 6 in various degrees of editing, Veninorchid and Esotheria-sims have seen them, so they exist lol I will eventually finish editing them - it's mostly a Romitri flashback - and post them. But after that, I will have to decide how to proceed. Spending less time editing would help, but lowering the quality of my pages, the only thing people like about it, really doesn't sit well with me, because yeah, perfectionist.

So at the very least the remaining pages will be posted in early 2024, I might go back to it slowly, a little bit everyday so I don't burn out or put stress on my shoulder. But after that, it's up in the air. It's not like I've been staring at the walls during this time, I had other things taking my goldfish-like attention. I got interested in home bookbinding, which made me dig out old unfinished stories I once started and I've been trying to finish them and later try to bind them, because why the fuck not lol And on my reblogs tumblr I had this set of pictures about a Regency little story that people really loved and I'd like to add to it, but then again, all the editing it'd need *cries* I feel tugged in so many directions I fear I'll end up doing nothing lol

So the TL;DR is, I got bored with the comic because it was too much work and resulted in physical pain, I lacked the motivation and other things got my attention meanwhile. Chapter 6 will be be finished eventually, but after that it's up in the air. Cross my fingers that I get my mojo back while editing those pages. Still, a thank you to all of followed and are still following, sorry these were not the good news you wanted to read just because I made a post. You support up until now was what kept me going in the past, I can't thank you all enough.

#a psa I guess?#va comic #vampire academy

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