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ghosthan · 3 years

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what would you say are the differences between 616 Tony and MCU Tony? 🤔

Hi anon! Many people have talked about this and I'm certainly not the authority on the topic, but I’ll try my best to explain some of the major differences that I have noticed! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer you.

Important to note: neither version of Tony has had a totally consistent characterization. Depending on who you ask and which comics/movies they've consumed, they might give you a different answer here and not be wrong.

616 Tony is even harder to put into one box because his character has been around since Tales of Suspense in the 1950s. That’s a long time. Things have changed over time, under different writers, changing political atmospheres, and outside pop culture influence (including influence from the MCU, unfortunately, in recent years.) You get the picture. So I’ll be making some generalizations and try to be clear about which eras I’m speaking when I make these comparisons, but ultimately, if someone wanted to be contrarian, you could probably refute a lot of what I say here if you cherry pick canon. Which is fair enough! That’s sort of the fun of comics, there’s so much to choose from and something for everyone.

So here are some observations from me, under the ‘read more’.

1. Physical Appearance

This is sort of an easy one, but worth mentioning!

MCU Tony does not look like 616 Tony. RDJ is great, but he would not be most 616 fans’ casting choice on looks alone. MCU Tony is tan, a Malibu man, with brown hair and brown eyes, and RDJ has sort of round facial features (a funny sloped nose, big, round eyes, round forehead, not a particularly sharp or classically “superhero masculine” face.) As you may know, this lends well to certain fanworks and tropes, such as Tony having Bambi eyes.

Or Tiny Tony. He is not actually canonically small, but he's smaller in the MCU than in 616 and from what I can tell, a portion of fandom has latched onto that. He’s a grown man, but RDJ is pretty short, and of slighter build than 616 Tony. RDJ is 5′9, but they make him act in heels, and I believe his canon MCU height is 5′11. Another popular trope I’ve seen is shrinking Tony in fanfic/fanart for a dramatized height difference with Steve, making him weak or fragile; this is fine because everyone has their own taste, but for the official record, he’s a capable, strong guy! Especially in earlier stages of the MCU, in which he’s a bit younger. Tony isn’t just a brain; he carries out his plans with his own two hands! He builds his armor, he remodels his lab, he survives hand to hand combat when he doesn’t have the armor. Muscles!

616 Tony is 6′1 without armor and 6′6 in armor (making him taller than his 616 Steve counterpart in armor and very close to the same height out of armor!) 616 Tony is generally paler with black hair (sometimes the classic blue-black I love so much) and blue eyes, and it obviously depends on the artist, but he has a pretty typically ‘masculine’ face and build. Generally he is drawn with a squared jaw and a high bridged nose (such as in the Extremis storyline, or drawn by Marquez), but again, this varies from artist to artist! Here's some examples of 616 Tonys.

Wait, you might be saying, but I have seen comic panels where Tony has brown hair/brown eyes!

Yep. Due to a combination of forgetfulness, inconsistency, and the MCU bleeding into the general consciousness of the comics, sometimes Tony is randomly depicted in the image of RDJ, or if not in his image, at least visually inspired by the MCU-- hair color and style, eye color, dialogue, etc.

616 fans don’t typically love this; he’s very handsome when drawn this way, of course, (look at him!) But it isn’t really the same character.

Also, MCU Tony has (at least for some of his movies) a reactor built into his chest. While 616 Tony has, at times, been more or less physically connected/dependent to his tech, he doesn’t have the built in reactor (most generally speaking, there are times in comics when he temporarily has the tech built in, but this isn’t really the status quo.)

2. Relationship with parents/ family history

While it is definitely implied in the MCU that Howard was not a good father to Tony, (such as in Iron Man 2 when Tony says “You're talking about a man whose happiest day of his life was shipping me off to boarding school” and “He was cold, calculating, never told me he loved me, never even told me he liked me”), Tony has a different sort of attitude toward Howard in MCU than in 616. It’s kind of weird, and hard to discuss. To me, it seems implied that MCU Howard was emotionally abusive to Tony based on what Tony does say about his childhood, and yet, the films kind of randomly give Howard weird moments of “Well, he tried his best and deep down he loved me the whole time!” forgiveness. MCU has a Howard kink and I'm very cringe-face emoji about it.

For example, Iron Man 2 shows that old film reel of Howard talking about how Tony is the greatest thing he ever created, and in Endgame, when Tony goes back in time, he meets Howard and has a very weird interaction with him in which Howard declares he would do anything for his son, (to his deeply damaged son who is a new father himself.) Yet, for all his talk, it's his actions that speak, and his actions left Tony damaged, traumatized, and emotionally inept at forming healthy relationships. So.

Sorry. I’m a little bitter. I'm just uncomfortable with how they sort of set up an abuse history but then treated it kind of lightly and Howard gets off the hook as "well, he tried his best" without really acknowledging the hurt he caused.

Avengers: Endgame 2019

I won't go super in depth into the abuse stuff because it's a little touchy and could take up a lot of this post. But.

I’m not against any reconciliation and I do appreciate the fact that a lot of times, victims of abuse feel a desire to forgive and reconnect with their abuser-- my issue with the MCU depiction of Tony and Howard is that Tony never really gets the vindication of his abuse being recognized for what it was before he forgives Howard. To me, that’s not forgiveness as kind of... gaslighting himself that it wasn't as bad as he remembered his own experience being, because of a sense of nostalgia and grief. It’s not the same, and I have issues with it.

However, a lot of my opinion is based on subtext and it is just my opinion; with depictions of abuse, different people are going to react differently, and other people may have found these scenes touching and gotten something positive out of them, and that's totally fine too!

It’s also a bit difficult to talk about Tony’s relationship with Howard in 616, for a few reasons: shifting timelines, lots of canon that I have not read all of, and the fact that it really is difficult to sum up such a complicated relationship.

Right off the bat, I’ll address the basics. I used the same scene in another ask, and I think it's frequently cited in any meta regarding Howard, but in Iron Man Vol. 1, we see more into Tony’s childhood and see Howard verbally abusing his family, drunk, at the dinner table.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285

We get this scene with adult Tony’s retrospective commentary on how his own issues that he blamed himself for were actually a cycle starting with his father, the insecurity and abuse and alcohol, and that he realizes how much this has influenced him. Both MCU Tony and 616 Tony have some form of “stop the cycle of shame” arcs, but I don’t really see how this works narratively in the MCU because Tony makes excuses for Howard and continues to blame himself for a lot of his own personal struggles, whereas I think there’s just a bit more nuance in 616.

But uh. This isn’t totally true, and in recent years, things got real weird. I choose to ignore this chapter of canon, but in the Dan Slott run, Tony Stark: Iron Man, Tony’s whole backstory gets imploded. For one thing, the little of Tony’s childhood it shows in a flashback is uh. Uh. Well, it’s certainly out of character compared with previous 616 material, depicting Tony as an overly confident poor sport.

Basically, Tony is adopted. Tony has an evil brother. Tony’s biological parents make an appearance, as do his ‘classic’ parents, Howard and Maria. It’s just weird. It’s kind of out there. I’m honestly not a huge fan of this and ignore a lot of it, but it is certainly a difference between MCU and 616.

3. Personality

I’m going to be very general. Both Tony’s have an outer self which they present to the public and an inner self, but they’re a bit different. Both Tony’s have struggled with self loathing, but I think MCU Tony’s actual self worth is a bit higher, even just at some points in time. Even if his ego is part of his facade, I think he does believe some amount of the “I’m awesome”, even if just when it applies to his own work/inventions/saving people. Not to say that these moments of fluctuating self esteem make him egotistical, but this combined with his egotistical act and snarky, non-stop sassy dialogue, he’s quite different in general personality from 616 Tony, who is much more reserved.

Some more recent iterations of 616 Tony have been adapted to reflect the snark of the MCU, but he’s not so snarky and he tends to approach things more seriously. This is not a dis on MCU Tony; I think MCU Tony uses false ego and excessive sassy jokes as a means to deflect and control, which I think is very interesting and it’s nice to see this explored more in depth in fic where you get to see the thought process behind the bravado. MCU Tony is a partier, a good times guy, especially during Iron Man 2, in which he really does disregard consequences to have fun (driving his race car, partying drunk in his suit, letting pretty girls play with the armor, shooting off repulsor blasts for fun in a crowded room); I’m not bashing MCU Tony-- I think he had psychologically understandable reasons for behaving this way, the man was dying-- but 616 Tony really doesn’t act this way generally, and I think it’s a personality difference more than a difference of one being “better.”

616 Tony handles his stress differently, and they just have different psychological patterns, I think. I’m coming up kind of blank trying to think of a good comparable 616 arc, (sorry, I’m brain dead) but a less-than-perfect example might be Tony’s brain delete arc; he’s “dying”, like in Iron Man 2 he knows his expiration date, (circumstances are quite a bit different), but he throws himself more into work, into a cause, and as he really fall apart, we see him spiral into self doubt, remorse, fear, and insecurity, sort of falling into himself with lots of manly tears and calling himself pathetic.

(Some things happen in this arc that a lot of people find Gross. I also find these events gross. But. I don’t count the sex in “World’s Most Wanted” as partying to cope with personal mortality, because I think both character involved are in “end of the world” mode, and it’s more seeking intimacy for comfort than partying to numb the hurt. Does this distinction make sense? No? Perfect, moving on.) 616 Tony is generally much more humble.

Whereas MCU Tony, I think, tries to outrun those feelings via parties or making dozens of new suits, or seeking comfort by comforting others! Gifting things to people, building things for people, highly personalized individual living quarters, teaching Nebula games and trying to show her a fun time when they were in peril together.

They have some traits in common, for sure! But canon being inconsistent both in the MCU and in 616, my observations aren’t the rule, because I’m kind of cherry picking and going based on limited memory. But off the top of my head, they’re both extravagant gift givers! Recall Tony gifting Pepper the giant bunny in Iron Man 3, and compare this with Tony carrying a mile high pile of Christmas gifts after shopping with Rumiko in Iron Man Vol. #3.

I would say that while both Tony Starks are considered humanitarians, this is much more fleshed out and supported by canon in 616. Some examples of his philanthropy in the MCU: Tony makes charitable donations of art and money, Tony has an organization which provides disaster relief/cleanup which is referenced in Spider-Man Homecoming, Tony has an MIT grant for students and staff members. But to be honest, a lot of his MCU philanthropy is only mentioned in passing, or is largely handled by other people on his behalf and on his dollar.

In 616, we see Tony using charity almost as a means of therapy: it’s something he does very privately, not in the public eye (at least, not always), and it’s something deeply personal to him. One example that immediately comes to mind is Tony’s home for disadvantaged girls in Iron Man Vol. 3, and we see scenes of Tony basically driving the streets at night, picking up underage prostitutes, feeding them and listening to their stories before bringing them to a home he’s established where he knows all the residents, and provides educational opportunities and protection.

Another more recent example in canon that the Tony fandom loves is that Tony canonically holds babies at an orphanage. Sorry I don’t have panels for all of this, this section got long and I have been working on answering this ask in a very scattered way for a very long time.

Both Tony’s are romantics, I literally could write a whole other post about their canon love life similarities and differences, but I will briefly say that while MCU Tony does the long on and off, and eventual ultimate commitment, to Pepper Potts, 616 Tony is a serial monogamist; he is always falling in love, and he’s definitely not a playboy, but the hero-ing, self loathing, and lifestyle make it very hard for him to keep anyone in his life, and most of his partners fuck his life up and betray him. Needless to say, 616 Tony is not married, and certainly not to Pepper Potts.

Oh, and I guess this is so obvious I almost forgot to include it, but a huge similarity between both iterations of Tony is that they both constantly use their own life as a bargaining chip, and will pretty much die for anything. Or be the bad guy for a good reason (at least, in his own mind... see Civil War, or Hickmanvengers; 616 Tony, especially, does not shy away from making the hard decisions, and this leads to a lot of guilt and tension in his relationships-- often with Steve because 616 Steve/Tony angst fans are well fed, I guess)

Remember that time Tony had Steve’s mind wiped because Tony felt that Steve’s inflexible morality might hinder the Illuminati’s ability to save the world? And it eats Tony up inside and erupts into a homicidal fight when Steve finally gets his memory back? Me too.

Tony Stark as a character is defined by sacrifice, both of his own life but also of his own happiness and reputation and conscience, I think, in a lot of ways, and we see this in many universes. I could go on about Tony’s propensity for sacrifice in the less obvious ways, because I think in terms of heroic sacrifice, Tony has done a lot that other heroes wouldn’t be able to do because of moral inflexibility and conflicting philosophical schools of thought; Tony really is the “whatever it takes” type, and often believes the ends justify the means if he deems a threat worse than the potential wrong that could be done in preventing the threat. We see this a little bit in the MCU in the creation of Ultron, and in Civil War with the Accords. But there’s a whole lot more going on there I don’t want to get into.

4. Alcohol

MCU Tony’s alcoholism is never really explicitly explored. He is shown drinking in Iron Man 1, and in Iron Man 2 he drinks a lot and makes a fool of himself publicly, but MCU Tony doesn’t get any specific narrative arc focused on his drinking, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think he ever refers to his drinking as alcoholism in the movies? Also, while his binge drinking and embarrassing behaviors ostensibly stop after the events of Iron Man 2, he is shown drinking on screen at least one other time after that which I can remember, and it wasn’t a “falling off the wagon” moment, and an alcoholic in recovery such as 616 Tony would not take a drink casually. This article sheds a little light on some decisions made about Tony and alcohol in the MCU.

Alcoholism is a huge part of 616 Tony’s personality, which I went a bit more into depth about in this post, so I won’t repeat myself too much.

5. Their relationships with the Iron Man armor

A few points here: MCU Tony is famous for the “I am Iron Man” line being repeated throughout the franchise after he blows his own secret in the end of the first movie. MCU Tony sees himself as one with Iron Man, and the suit is the tech that enables him to be this version of himself. He sees Tony Stark and Iron Man as inextricable: you cannot separate them, and his identity is public. He, as Tony Stark, is an Avenger.

You may remember MCU Tony’s induction into the Avengers; in Iron Man 2, Nick Fury is forming the Avengers and tasks the Black Widow with going undercover to assess Tony to be a part of a hypothetical initiative. “Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no” and the comments about Tony as a narcissist may be funny, but the fact is, the snark and erratic personality of MCU Tony at the time of the formation of the Avengers in the movies is not at all like the Tony of the comics, at the time of the Avengers being formed.

In 616, things are quite a bit different! Tony invents the Iron man armor to save himself (like in the MCU) and uses it for hero-ing, but in secret. He works very hard to protect his identity as Iron Man, and for a long time, as far as the world is concerned, Iron man is a mystery man piloting armor built by Tony, hired as Tony’s personal body guard, (hence the 616 Steve/Tony fandom’s proclivity for identity porn as a trope!) When the Avengers form, Iron Man is the Avenger, close friends with the Avengers, (particularly Steve!) and Tony Stark is just the benefactor of the Avengers, providing them with a place to live and finances with which to operate.

In the very early days, Tony did not have the “reactor” like in the MCU, but his chest plate did keep him alive, leading to some very dramatic shots of Tony charging up using a wall socket, lamenting the plight of a secret hero.

616 Tony, generally, and especially in some of these earlier comics, was quite reserved, rather serious, and very angsty, (in private of course.) He may be wealthy, but speaking generally, he’s much less ostentatious than MCU Tony, less of a show off, less into flashy things and grand gestures. Of course, this isn’t always true in the comics, and some iterations of Tony are more like this than others, but MCU Tony is showier, sillier, and more of a fun-times guy. Any MCU fan would find those panels quite contrary to the Tony Stark you know:

Iron Man 1

Iron Man 2

I think I would say that while MCU Tony sees himself and the Iron Man identity and the armor as all being inextricably connected, we see a bit more compartmentalization with 616 Tony, who pretends that the armor is a whole separate person for years when his identity was private, and we see instances in older and newer comics, in which Tony is uncomfortable with some aspect of himself as Iron Man (for instance, during the second drinking arc, Tony temporarily swears off being Iron Man entirely, or for another example, when Tony is in a comma and Tony AI exists during Secret Empire, Tony “lives” in the Iron Man suit, and I think this could be interpreted as a meta parallel to Steve during this arc; Steve has had some core aspect of his character inverted, Captain America becoming Captain Hydra, so Tony experiences a similar inversion-- Tony Stark and Iron Man are forcibly merged, in a way that Tony seems deeply uncomfortable with, if his digital drinking relapse is any indication. But I digress; sorry for the tangent.)

Okay this post is inexcusable long, and very, very tangential, and I don’t feel like I’ve really covered everything I wanted to. But it has been sitting in my inbox for too long and if I don’t post it now I never will, so I hope this long, rambling thing has been a little bit helpful to you! Thank you so much for asking, I had a lot of fun rambling about this.

If you want to read a similar post, but well written and organized, with other insights, this post by Sineala answers a similar question!

#Anonymous #han reads comics #han meta #meta #iron man #tony stark #616 tony stark #616 #mcu #long post #han speaks #ask #sorry this definitely gets more incomprehensible as it goes on but i have been writing and rewriting and editing and fretting about this #for so long that if i dont just post it i probably never will and i sunk too many hours into it #to throw it away now 😅#abuse tw #abuse #alcoholism tw #alcoholism

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ourladylennon · 3 years

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this is a stress rant and also I absolutely have to get these thoughts out of my head and onto something so that I can understand how I'm feeling. so pardon me.

I have some very mixed feelings about my latest tattoo experience and it has been incredibly, astoundingly stressful. For anyone who was interested in how it went.

and after typing out this whole rant and reading it back my advice is: ALWAYS make sure it is exactly what you want. ALWAYS speak up if you don’t.

I have a specific style, as everyone, but the style of tattoo I have is a bit of a niche that can be hard to find: geometric design with dotwork/pointillism/stippling techniques to create shading rather then standard fill in shading. This shading style is incredibly time consuming and taxing for the artist and I've had a lot of trouble finding people who specialize in this (and within my area).

I started with an artist about 3 years ago, whom was new to me but known to be good. Got my appt set up, he drew me an entire sleeve- it was absolutely gorgeous. Went through two sessions and his work is genuinely amazing. Clean. Precise. Detailed. Unique. I didn't vibe with him too great but it was something I kind of put aside. But without explaining the whole fucking mess that became, just know that our artist-client relationship fell through. This left me with only the beginning of my tattoo. The whole ordeal was really stressful and upsetting so I put down the goal of getting it finished to try and recoup. And I just continually hit roadblocks trying to find artists who are good at dotwork and willing to do it. Often times they live in other cities/states/etc. Obviously this involves meeting a new artist, trying to figure out if it's a good fit, driving out for consultations/redoing all that process- s t r e s s. Now with covid, it's even more difficult because almost every artist I've come across that I've considered has closed books. All of them being out of town which is fine because it would be worth it. It's expected.

But after three years of this go around of trying to find someone, I was getting really put out by the process and just wanting to get this thing going. (Mistake #1- or #2 technically cause fucking up w the first artist is where it all started and I do regret it to this day).

A new shop opened IN my town- a miracle!!! I started following an artist whose work I found to be particularly amazing. Clean lines, clean shading, artistic seeming. Didn't see any pointillism, but I just like kept seeing her work and thinking damn that's good. So I decided to reach out and told her this is what I'm looking for, a dotwork sleeve and here are some examples of the style I like. I specifically mentioned this and asked if they'd be interested in working on it because I know that dotwork is not everyone's thing. The artist replied and said they've been wanting to get into and would like to do that (we'll call this mistake #3. Do not assume the artist, even if very good at other things will be good at all things. Do not go to an artist wanting a specific style without having seen their work for THAT style).

At this point I sent over pictures of my current tattoo that we'd be adding onto for reference. In my mind this is what I thought would mean: "I am looking at what you have to see how to incorporate it into a new sleeve design and see how I can create a collaborative piece and mesh the two together." (Mistake #4: that was not the case. Do not assume. Anything. Ever.)

The appt date was relatively quick despite the fact that I figured she'd be booked out for quite some time (red flag #1: not because she wasn't busy. But because this was not a whole lot of time to come up with a design but I figured "Well she knows her capabilities better than I do and she wouldn't suggest it that soon if she weren't sure). In my previous experiences, the artist will send you a proof or have a separate appt to review the design. I never received an email with said design (red flag #2, in my personal opinion. But I thought I was just being...extra? Also just thought, okay I'll see it at the appt and it will be OK, right? <- mistake #5).

I show up, there is no sleeve design. (RED FLAG #3) There are two single mandala tattoos. Outlines only. No shading. I'd also like to say my style is much more geometric fractals than it is mandala. A lot of people find these interchangeable but...they're really much different. (RED. FLAG. #4). I genuinely did not see that coming. Maybe I'm wrong to say, but this was negligent in my opinion and experience. A sleeve design ensures that your finished piece flows, that it works together, you can see the whole picture, modify, etc. Especially with it being an addition to my existing work. Cannot stress how much of a red flag.

I'm wigging out at this point. I don't love them but I want this tattoo. I'm going back and forth thinking, "maybe it's just because the shading isn't filled in I can't picture it." (MISTAKE #6: trust your gut!!!). I tell her OK well I like this about this one and that about that one. She only nods and listens, where I was expecting feedback; perhaps an "OK well we can draw it on" or "I can rework it" etc. She didn't and I am too paralyzed to speak up. (Red flag #4)

Mistake #7: I accept it at this point. I pick between the two. She has to go resize it. I'm having a literal internal freak out and battle. I am someone who DOES NOT know how to speak up for themselves. In any way. EVER. For any reason. At any time. I am a fear based individual, in fact, I am nearly certain I have APD (avoidant personality disorder) and it effects me severely and deeply. To the point that simply speaking to someone can be hard for me.

But my brain was screaming you cannot do this! You aren't sure! This is for life! It's your body!! You HAVE to say something! (RED fucking alert)

She came back with the one design resized and my heart is thumping, my chest is constricting, the throat feels like it's closing. I make myself say it. I tell her I don't think this is what I'm looking for. I literally almost busted into tears trying to say it because I was so fucking terrified and overwhelmed. I've never been in a position where I genuinely wasn't sure whether I liked what I was looking at. She says you don't need to be sorry you should speak up this is your body. So immediately, I lost a lot of tension because of her kindness. I thought she would be angry or rude or upset, just because I'm fearful. She proceeded to kind of go in and shade in with a pencil on the stencil to give me a better idea and apologized that she should have had that prepared. I continue asking questions to assuage my concerns and feel....better....ish. she offers to redraw and reschedule but I went against my gut, gave into my desperacy to continue my sleeve, dismissed my feelings as being just my typical overexertion of fear and did something I NEVER do: turn my back on my instincts. (Mistake. Mistake #8)

She was pleasant and I genuinely enjoyed her, felt comfortable with her which is not something I can say about previous artists and that's a good chunk of why I decided to continue. I liked her, I liked her other work I've seen, I just thought that once the stippling was in that I'd see it was really nice. However, I am laying there and I'm like I do not feel poking, which is literally how dotwork is done. Dot by dot. I'd feel her do the tiniest bit of dot-dot-dot and I'm like OK OK I'm just not paying full attention and missing it. But then I'd hear and feel her shading- standard shading. I'm like why is she using a shading tip? I'm just confused honestly. I'm like I have no idea what the could be for, just assume it's necessary for something I didn't realize. But I can see because I'm laying and my arms at a weird angle.

I finally get a peek while she's pausing and its....not dotwork. It's not dotwork at all, in fact. It's too late at this point in my eyes. It was only partially done but what am I gonna do? Stop her in the middle and have an unfinished tattoo? And then what? (Try to) go to someone else to have them do dotwork and have a half unmatching tattoo? There was nothing I could do. So I resigned and accepted this as the consequences of my actions and ill choices. And that's honestly been the hardest part to deal with: I let this happen to myself because I could not speak up. The only person who could have stopped this was ME. And I could not do it. That's how deeply my issues of fear run. And that is terrifying, pathetic, sad.

I'm not saying I got the world's ugliest tattoo. It's okay. Just okay. In the words of RuPaul, meh. I don't want meh. I want astounding. And I didn't do what I needed to to make that happen or not happen.

I just have been in awe over the fact that I asked for dotwork and the artist expressed no concern over this, literally had my existing tattoo right above where they were working and continued to not emulate that style of shading at all. Most of this is my fault, 90% of it. But there was negligence on the artists side and I genuinely don't think they meant it to be. I just don't think they had enough experience, but they too should have spoke up if they didn't feel they could carry it out. They gave me no inclination that they could not or would not be doing dotwork. At any point. And I do feel upset that I don't think they put in the effort or care to work off my existing tattoo in their design, and in looking back, their design also does not look nearly anything like the designs I gave for example. It was my job to walk away and request a redesign or to cancel and I didn't. So in the end this is on me. And it has been very taxing on my mental state.

To end this shit show: the tattoo I just got costed half of what my first one did, while only having taking the fraction of time as my first and being less then half the size of my first. It is not nearly as clean, it certainly reflects their level of experience. The shop environment was not fantastic: it felt a bit like as if I had walked into a chain restaurant...but a tattoo shop. There were no private rooms, there were no tattoo chairs. They were literal stools and that's not...not professional or normal. And I chose to continue.

I'm faced with some really tough decisions moving forward. I am at least thankful it is relatively small ish and wraps towards my inner arm which makes it less visible. But I'm at a crossroads of whether I go through the whole mess of trying to find a FOURTH artist to try and finish my sleeve the way it was meant to be finished (dotwork, whole sleeve design etc) and make the best of it at the risk of having a fucking patchwork arm. Or I continue to work with this artist and see the design through myself (literally design it myself which I didn't want to do but it doesn't appear that I should leave this to them), so that at least the remainder of my arm is consistent shading and work.

And because I've made it sound like the tattoo is atrocious, be assured it's not trash by any means. It's just not what I wanted. Big sis learned a big lesson.

(the immediate center is bothering me the most. But I think it can be altered. Nonetheless. The skill/experience level shows, unfortunately. And you can certainly see the difference between the stipple shading on my first tattoo and the regular shading on the new one.)

I am trying to be positive and that's all I can do. I accept the results and I think it can be fixed to a certain extent, and I can only hope as I move forward that I make the right decision and that the end product is something I enjoy.

#aye aye aye children #it was a big lesson is all i can say #genuinely helped to get all this out #i was able to identify my biggest stressor of this whole experience which is a disappointment in myself first and foremost #but i have hope #and it will be okay #as my dear anon reminded me tis but a bump in the road #sorry for the huge ass rant but i have been having the worst anxiety over it and i do feel a lot better #and i am glad to get this off my chest and move on #it's like a resolution to move forward now #deep breath! :-)

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butyouvealwaysbeenthecaretaker · 3 years

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There's something I'm trying to put into words,

about the discomfort of straight women who are very into slash and yaoi. It's been bothering me in a quiet way for a while, and then over the weekend it exploded, and I'm trying to pick my way through pain constructively.

There's a couple of things.

~*~

Point zero is that desire is good, actually, and so is fantasy. Keep this in mind, we'll come back to it.

~*~

The first thing is shame. People who are choosing to approach their own desire from the side, not willing to recognise their own bodies or vocalise their desire in their own voice, or think about sex in which their bodies participate. People who are too afraid to work on their own liberation, so take yours.

After all, feminist sexual writing is a whole genre and tradition. The only reason why queer men's liberation feels appealing to these women is that they have nothing at stake in it: it's fantasy, it's safe, it's nothing to do with or about them.

For actual queer men, the process of liberationary sex writing is - of course - mortifying; or there is a stage of mortification and pain one experiences in approaching it. It is not, and never will be, your safe space; that's why you're trying to transform it into one.

~*~

The second thing is privacy. I'd wake up and log on and there would be a full-flown gigglefest about sex in slash, and not being able to quite put my finger on how to say - this is making me feel bad and weird. And in retrospect, this picks up on point 1. Whose bodies are we sexualising in this space. I want to go back and start a conversation about how I prefer girl-on-top and how people who read missionary fic are gross, and hey when you read Barbie/Ken fic, do you see them mostly doing it doggy style?

Because I think that would make-it-real, for these women to feel their own bodies are at stake and being scrutinised in the conversation.

Making my morning coffee, I wonder what kinds of sexual relationships these women have, and if they know that "gay missionary" isn't this abstract concept that appears in fanfiction but a kind of sex they have all the right anatomy to experience for themselves. I suspect they would not like that, and that also the purpose of these conversations is specifically so that nobody envisages them having sex, or being sexual beings.

~*~

The third is experience.

A. thinks that it's a problem that teenagers watch gay porn. (A. wrote her dissertation on gay porn.) A has never had her rights removed on the basis that the world must be made "safe for children".

B thinks there's too much gross stuff in fanfic and it should be banned. B has never experienced fanfic archives removing LGBT material under the aegis of child-protection and removing what is "gross". B has never experienced a reasonable-sounding expansion of anti-kink laws being used in the vaccum where anti-gay laws once stood, the way they disproportionately target queer porn, or are used to harass sex workers, or arrest queer people.

C thinks that anyone who has a gross fantasy, is a hair-trigger away from actually hurting somebody. C is cisgender, and will never be arrested in a bathroom or have her body regarded as inherently a gross sexual fetish. C does not date women, and has never come to learn that a fist may be more easy to take than a kiss, when you are made to feel disgusting for desiring love. C is also asexual - the shame associated with having a sexual expression of any kind is not on her radar. C does not experience gender dysphoria, and had to wrestle with the downright odd things you brain does to manage a libido and an incoherent body all at once. C has never dated someone who survived the peak of AIDS, and has formed intimate connections between blood and sex and death, forged by decades of homophobic media and law. C. cannot tolerate the concept of erotic horror because she has never been made to experience her own body and desires as horrifying.

All these women spend all their free time making stories about imaginary gay and crossdressing men, talking about drag race, and sylvester.

This is not dissonant to them. As we have said, these women see queer man culture as a a place of safety - an escape from patriarchy and their own discomfort. They are unable to comprehend queer expression as a thing that is not safe.

They are very certain that they can tell the difference between a sexual expression that is gross and nongross; and hurting the gross is therefore OK, because punishing perverts will never be co-opted in their soft-focus world of tender coffeshop AUs and gentle longing and having the right kind of gay sex that is photogenic for women to consume.

~*~ A corollary: these things are not for you. What if we defined queer media - one of many possible definitions - as a thing that excludes. Their defining quality is a conversation between queer artist and queer listener, drawn from the conversations the artist had with their friends and lovers, or conversations with the world which anyone within the wall will find familiar.

I am suddenly, humbling-ly and viscerally aware of where the *don’t like white people who like ballroom culture* people are coming from

~*~

The fourth thing is that broader conversation about women with privilege (whiteness, class, straightness), being unable to consider that their behaviour could ever be dangerous or destructive.

Their own narrative of sexual victimhood and shame is central in their own hearts, and they are incapable of adopting an intersectional perspective which adds nuance to their experiences.

~*~

And the fifth is how much they hate you when you try and bring actual queer politics into their fragile world.

Simultaneously asking, on the one hand - could we make this space safe for work again, so it feels a little less like it does now? and being howled at, as if that's an outrageous restriction on their right to talk about pornography.

And on the other, if we are to be a porn conversation place, can we try and rethink the judgemental "anyone who likes weird sex is a threat" attitudes that come up over, and over, and over again.

Needless to say, the needle for "this man is a sexual predator" fired in under 30 seconds and, shortly after demanding I leave the community I established, nobody has spoken to me since.

~*~

There's a particular soreness, I think, of being around people who want to casually chat about drag and feel like Born This Way is theirs and want to PM you about their dissertation on gay porn studios of the 1970s and stan the Marquis de Sade

but cannot take the reality of being around queer people or their lives.

An ugliness, a grossness, a grossness that compounds the passively "being treated like a sexual object" into an active bar on having sexual subjectivity. A be seen but not heard of the bedroom: be seen, a Bowie-chiselled Velour-glamoured Cowley-sparkling Velvet Goldmine vision;

but not heard, as in, don't ever cross that line into talking about real sex in our fantasies (even when our fantasies are your real sex), and don't ever make us consider that our words have weight.

I'm spending time in a little world with women who like Interview with a Vampire, the Company of Wolves, David Lynch and the Marquis de fucking Sade, and who are so fragile around their own fears of desire that they cannot tolerate someone saying - it's fine to be into stuff, and not be ashamed.

This odd middle space, where on the one hand I am comfortable in spaces which are sexually silent - where the horror and challenge of my body and life never come up; and on the other, I am comfortable in spaces which are radically sexually open, in which no-one need feel afraid or judged.

These women, on the other hand, want something else: this desire to talk about sex billowing out of them, irrepressably, but also to use that freedom to box other sexualities down tight - to judge, to shame, to define themselves coyly by describing others as disgusting, to feel that urge spilling into view only to publically run away from it and demand others do the same.

Erotica, without wanking. Desiring men, without women. Thinking about the sex lives of your toy dolls, but not being into that weird stuff. Fantasies, with no bodies. Male sexuality, with no actual men in it.

~*~

I am the last of three queer people who has left that community; and still, I imagine, the "define our own sexuality in coded ways by judging things we are not as gross, and creating in the gaps around our own bodies and desires a world of gay men who are like I wish to be" conversations are going on; but unobserved by any actual queers who might break the fantasy.

And reader, I liked these people. I'm heartbroken.

#longreads #responses welcome but reblog with care #I have this lovely little note I was sent last week from one of them saying how much they appreciated the work I'd put in to making such a n #nice community #The bedroom politics tag #the feminism tag

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howtosingit · 3 years

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Hi! Sorry for bothering, just wanna hear your thoughts about all this fuss FOX is apparently making over Gwyneth/Owen storyline. I mean, the synopsis says Gwen arrived in Austin to visit her son following the injuries he sustained at the end of last season. But what do we see in promos? Owen and Gwyneth hooked up... and now FOX is promoting the hell out of it. I get it, they’re two big stars in this show and it’d be logical to explore their own dynamic, but I really do wanna see a solid mother/son relationship between Gwen and TK. I’ve seen none of it in the promos so far, but rather a dozen of different takes of Owen and Gwyneth being intimate. And now Lisa Edelstein is doing a bunch of interviews promoting the show, and the only thing she’s talking about is her relationship with Owen/Rob Lowe, which is annoying af because I thought the point was to finally introduce TK’s mother and focus on her relationship with her son who had been through some really hard times last season. *sigh* Sorry for all of this tho, I’m just frustrated :(

Oh, Anon, I’m sorry that you’re frustrated! I’ve been there, recently actually, and it’s never a fun feeling. And I totally see where your frustration is coming from, I do!

Lots of thoughts about TV marketing strategies under the cut so I’m not clogging up everyone’s dashboard...

Listen, Marketing is just... it’s weird. It relies on trends, taking the pulse of the audience, deciding what content might give the show the most bang for its buck. It’s all numbers and well-discussed talking points and narratives; it’s literally a whole complex system.

And I think the really important thing to remember is that the people who market a TV show are NOT the same people who write a TV show. I work in the entertainment industry (regional theatre, not Hollywood TV, but I’m sure there are similarities) and a marketing strategy for a show is not developed by the director and actors and production team creating that show. It’s all headed by the artistic director of the theatre, sure, but directives for a marketing strategy are based on a large number of things, and not all of them have to do with the actual content of the show that’s being marketed. And that’s weird, yes, but it’s the nature of the beast.

So, yes. The promos have been very Owen/Gwen heavy, and interviews with Rob and Lisa have been the same, but that’s a marketing narrative, not necessarily the narrative for the season. Do I wish we were seeing more Gwen and TK? Of course I do. Do I think us not seeing it means that it’s not going to happen? Absolutely not. I think it’s there, we’re just not being teased with it because it’s not the best use of precious promo time.

Obviously, when they sat down to market this season, they picked some major topics to focus on... One is Tommy Vega/Gina Torres (though not as much as I was expecting), one is Rob Lowe being Rob Lowe, one is TK and Carlos (though we got that a little later, quite possibly because we were raising hell about it), and the last one is Owen and Gwen. I think, in an attempt to clarify things for the audience, they’ve stayed in those lanes and tried not to really mix things up. They’ve kept TK pretty firmly attached to Carlos for a few promos now (I’m not complaining, but I don’t think that’s going to be true for all of his plot lines in these episodes), and they’ve kept Gwen attached to Owen. It’s all about simplifying things for the general audience.

The main takeaway is that they can’t market the show to the fanbase. We’re here, and they expect us to remain committed, to tune in no matter what, so they can’t spend millions of dollars on us - basically, we don’t cost that much to keep around 😅 they have to focus on new viewers, and selling the show to general audiences that just tune into Fox for whatever reason.

A big draw for that audience is Owen and Gwen, as well as Rob and Lisa. They have a history (The West Wing), there’s an exciting narrative already built into their working relationship. They’re both Fox alums (him from The Grinder, her from House), so they’re easily recognizable by the mainstays of the Fox audience. Building on those narratives takes less work and therefore less money, so it’s not surprising that they’ve picked that play. (It’s also why it’s not surprising that there’s so much Rob Lowe in the promos, as much as I really don’t care for it.)

I’ve talked a lot about the marketing for this show and how it can be misleading, and I encourage you to go back to season 1′s promos and see if they were really representative of the show that we ended up getting. I’m not sure that they were (though I was not in the fandom then, so I wasn’t consuming every piece of news and footage that we got like I do now). We might not be seeing a lot of TK and Gwen, but I am fully confident that we’ll be seeing their relationship on the show when it finally does come. I’m not saying it will be a ton of content, but we’ll get some.

Lisa Edelstein might not be talking about TK a lot, but that’s because she’s been given talking points to cover in interviews, and again, the marketing strategy is all about Owen and Gwen. Every time you see an actor do press for a show, know that they are not saying whatever they want to say; they are given a script for interviews the same way they are given a script for episodes. It’s all part of the deal.

And hey, just remember! The season isn’t even fully written yet. They’ve only filmed 5 episodes. I’m sure they’ve only written like, 7 or 8. It’s still a work in progress, and things can still change. The footage that we’re seeing is probably mostly from the first 3-4 episodes, so it’s really not representative of the whole of season 2. It’s really just the easily digestible plots that will appeal to the most people.

Don’t lose hope that you’ll still get the content that you want! It might not be everything that you hoped for, but I think as long as you remain realistic, you’ll be pretty happy!

#911 lone star #ls spoilers #ls speculation #wow this was... a lot #I'm so sorry anon #I too was getting really upset when we were getting all the rob lowe promos a month ago #so I understand your frustration about not seeing what you want to see #but remember that we're not seeing the whole story here #we're seeing what they've chosen for us to see #and THEY are not writers - THEY are marketing strategists #their jobs are very specific #marketing for a show does not always represent the show itself #it's crazy but it's true #also take this as a fan who has observed a lot of TV in his life #I do not work for Fox and can confirm nothing about season 2 #anonymous #asks

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therem-harth · 3 years

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h h hewwo owoo 22 / 23 / 29 / 31 / 34 / 50 / 58 / 61 / 88 in any order, and u can also just. pick only those that u want :3

hhhh-ewwwo? I did say I wanted to chat and I desperately do not want to do work or studies so buckle in for a long post (derogatory). 22. role model? Oh man, I don’t think I have any, like, specific ones for entire things, though I do fall in my hero-worship phaes and then fall out of them like everyone else. I think that taking an entire person and being like I wanna be like them is... not for me though. But I do look up to some people for specific things - I look up to, weirdly enough, Abigail Phylosohpytube who I didn’t watch before her coming out for her graceful coming out video though she admits that the experience wasn’t obviously as smooth. I look up to lots and lots of people for their ability to create and their art (not gonna tag my fav artists bc am tiny and do not want people to look at me, but i do be reblogging). I look up to people like ConcernedApe Stardewvalley and Supergiantgames Hades for their ability to put so much soul in their work, smth I aspire to do. I look up to @not-poignant for, among other things, their idk how to say it best, wisdom in understanding and communicating with others and with myself? I’ve learned a lot by just sort of being in their periphery and seeing how they articulate their thoughts and choose to be kind and witness other’s pain. Hell, I look up to twitch streamers and youtubers sometimes (the recent nice trait I’d like to have if I ever went into bigger content production is how ibxtoycat deals with parasocial relationship realities). 23. strange habits? Hm. I don’t think drinking tea whenever I need a pick-me-up is strange, that’s just probably forcefully assigning a British nationality to me. I think my insistence on misspelling words in a way I think is lowkey funny might be one, I say thamks bc it feels softer, or thank bc it’s funny, I say sleeb, I say finkers or tryink or otherwise replace g with k for lulz. I also don’t know if it counts as a habit but I have a small leather band around my wrist that’s been there for a year soon. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm I probs have like, stranger habits but I can’t recall rn. 29. best way to bond with you? Hmm. Well, if you show initiative and are explicit about wanting to spend time with me, that’s already a big chance of me spending time with you. And then if our interests match and I don’t think that you’re like, young in a way that automatically puts me in a position where I don’t feel comfortable really being myself around you bc in my head I have to look out for you (it has happened with two of my friends, sigh), and we regularly spend time together, voila, friend acquired. It simultaneously doesn’t take much and takes a bit to be my friend and bond with me - it’s easy af to become a casual friend cuz I’m always open to new people, but there has to be a level of trust to become like, a close friend. Respecting my boundaries, talking shit with me, being explicitly committal about wanting to bond with me are big steps that way. 31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names? Uh, I don’t do neither, but a current fave that is reasonably badass is my black tshirt with like, a ritual circle and a deer skull. V edgy, 10/10. I also used to have like a real edgy tshirt with a jester and some dice that said the game of life, but I threw it out bc dysphoria. or maybe I put it at the back of my closet along with one other shirt In Case I Get Top Surgery so I can wear them then. 34. advertisements you have stuck in your head? Many, such is the nature of advertising, alas. I have managed to avoid most of it tbh though, so the only place I am forced to sit through ads so they stick is my scrabble capitalist nightmare app where I play and always beat haha my coursemate. And they have adds for those shitty apps where you have to solve a puzzle that ends up failing in the add and like, drenching a man in green goo. I find those kinda fascinating tbh. Who plays these games? Who plays these shitty shitty games whose ad has to be “prove your IQ“ to make you want to prove yourself to play them? Oh and also, the insidious nature of ads in media I consume - the mcelroys have gotten me informed about many many things bc they do it in a funny way. Have you heard about squarespace? What about meundies? I also literally installed honey yesterday that I knew abt bc of the relentless adds and I wanted to save, uh, 2.50 from my minecraft server purchase (and then spent some time googling how they make money before giving up. just say u sell my data, that’s easier than not knowing what part of this makes you money). I was tired and in a weird mood, ok. 50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have? It’s always the stupidest jokes, what matters more is laughing together with someone and getting caught in a laughing loop. I still remember laughing with my siblings until our stomachs really really hurt bc I think one of us said a rug was vomit-colored and it was funny in the moment. How many times have I laughed like that with you too, vit. I know that Laura’s one is nostrilatu, right? :D :D It’s just something that catches you off guard, I think.

58. four talents you’re proud of having? Oh shid. Hm. 1) My ability to analyze data and understand the basic building blocks of something. Makes me cool at studying and sexy at explaining things to my course-mates. 2) Not a talent more like a skill that I’ve worked hard on through therapy - but my inner positive voice/healthy parent is very strong and automatic (something I was sure would never happen). A good example is me going out for a walk, my phone dying so I can’t listen to music, when I went in my head “well I can always make music in my head. do-do-do *drum sound*“ and I could feel the wave of self-reprimand cresting but before I could actually hear any negative comments the positive voice said with a light of a thousand suns NO THAT IS ACTUALLY CUTE AND SEXY and just haaaaaaah. 3) I sing good. Need to sing more. 4) I think I’m good at making conversation. Even with people I don’t necessarily like or want to talk to. More of a skill again but whatever. 61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.? Do not come to me and ask for favorites, witch. Uh, I have some quotes in my notes app, like 7 from Pia’s writing :D. But imma go with “It’s a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world“ by Mary Oliver. It counts, ok. Or, wait, something I will for real one day either crosstitch of commission shitpostcalligrapher: “t’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. “What are we holding onto Sam?” “There’s good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.“” 88. your greatest wish? Hrm. Right now? To have like a couple days with no responsibilities and without the outside world bearing on me as heavily, to be tiny tiny tiny so I’m invisible and can drink tiny tea on a tiny leaf. Uh, in general? My recently formulated wish or a goal is stability/peace. Then everything else becomes ok because you can bounce back to stable ground between feeling shit or everything happening so much. And I’ve sort of reached that. Also like, half a million euros would be nice too so I can get a house and a car and go on a few trips abroad. :D // there’s two ask memes in my blog recently, go wild

#long post #derogatory #personal #i think the wish to be tiny was there more last week #now i just wanna have nice things and fun and a bit of rest but am otherwise less overwhelmed #also hey. talks #chats

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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

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“Follow Your Own Star”

Lately I’ve found it hard to shake the feeling that everything of value is being destroyed, but we are being given simulacra in exchange, while we wait, to soften the blow. The relationship between the U.S. economy and what actually has value is basically nil, obviously, and COVID has only highlighted that, but beyond that, being in isolation has brought to light how much of what I consider “real” because it exists outside the bounds of money is nonetheless vulnerable. We’ve been given podcasts to fill our working hours with parasocial relationships where once we may’ve had genuine camaraderie with our coworkers. We’re given desultory political candidates to vote for in the absence of those who would govern in accordance with our actual beliefs. It feels like an elaborate art heist is taking place, where the masterpieces are exchanged for forgeries, and the endgame of those seeking to enrich themselves is to set a bonfire of all that’s made us human, all we’ve invested our true selves into. All this can occur only because our relationships have been made increasingly transactional already. I wondered at the start of quarantine how many couples, with the ability to see one another in the flesh compromised, had switched to having “sex” over Skype, how many intimate relationships were compromised by distance into resembling cam shows. Partly this curiosity was a way of comforting myself, as I came to the understanding that I would not be entering into anything approaching a real romantic relationship for the foreseeable future.

In the context of all of this, reading a book that feels reminiscent of the work of another artist feels like a minor thing, but it slips easily enough into the larger pattern. After reading Roaming Foliage by Patrick Kyle, I thought “Huh, this is very much a CF/Brian Chippendale thing.” Then, after reading Eight-Lane Runaways by Henry McCausland, I thought, “Oh, this is even more like a CF thing.” Both are, I think, appropriate for kids, which Powr Mastrs isn’t, but I also never read Powr Mastrs and felt like the thing that made it good was its BDSM pornography elements. People have been biting CF’s style for years — enough for him to address it with a little note in the third Powr Mastrs book, instructing them to “follow your own star.” Simon Hanselmann admits the similarities between the character design for Owl and a character in CF’s story in Kramers Ergot 5, Hanselmann’s subsequent popularity seems to suggest a moment where something becomes less of a direct influence and more just something that exists generally in the world. It’s art: Inspiration, influence, and appropriation are all part of the game. Reading Hanselmann, I’ve wondered what his work would’ve been like before exposure to his most obvious influences; reading these, I wondered instead if they would still have been made had Powr Mastrs 4 ever come out, to finish out the story and close the system; it feels like, in a transactional relationship between artist and audience, the fact of a work remaining unfinished makes it more socially acceptable to steal from. For instance, think of the debt Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain owes to Rene Daumal’s Mount Analogue. It feels like an attempt to create something with an ending, to satisfy a desire for the logic to reach its conclusion. The comics fulfill a certain set of expectations, I found them a pleasant enough experience, satisfying on a certain level. However, on a deeper level, I found them completely unsatisfying, because they speak so directly to a sense of unfulfilled potential. They lack the thrill that CF’s comics provide, of totally transcending any expectations placed on them.

Measuring the impact made by CF, Paper Rad, and the Fort Thunder contingent is difficult to calculate, because there were so many radical gestures inside that work, and while some have been metabolized, others have not. The “reclamation of genre material in an art-school context” is maybe the most readily understood. Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit probably wouldn’t exist were it not for these comics, but that’s such a “who cares” for me, such a dumbed-down and simplistic understanding of what makes these comics good. The silkscreening of covers is close behind, in terms of something that people really ran with. That’s fine, no one owns silkscreening, it looks great. What hasn’t really been reckoned with are the gestures against commodity fetishism. Paper Rodeo is progenitor of the free comics newspaper format, but the work that ran there is so much wilder than what you see in what followed, and most of it was anonymous. I understand why that was a gauntlet that wasn’t picked up, but is still one of the things that made an impact on its initial readership. Similarly, I haven’t seen anyone steal the CF format of the single-sheet xerox, with comics on the front and back. I guess that’s not surprising! But honestly? Sick format.

I’ve just been talking about comics, but Lightning Bolt playing on the floor is its own radical gesture, albeit one with an obvious precedent in the form of Crash Worship. The Forcefield oeuvre is its own thing. Those videos are great! The animation made out of photographing the cutting layers of multicolored clay… I wonder how much of this stuff hasn’t been picked up on because it’s the last stand of working with real world physical materials, before the coming of digital as the default medium for art students to work in. Obviously, the silkscreening has similar roots in physical media, and playing on floors relates directly to how you communicate with people when you’re in the same physical space as them. Real world community has distinct advantages, but many that came after took the trade for the benefits working digitally provides. Anyway. I could write a 33 1/3 book proposal for Lightning Bolt’s Ride The Skies that addresses all this stuff, but I also believe I would not be the best person to write such a book; I suspect those better suited would not be interested.

There is something so exciting about artists whose work feels overflowing with ideas, not just on a level of concept or drawing but also in terms of how the work is presented. That whole Providence/Picturebox crew was so abundant with this creative ferment that when I see others picking up on individual threads it makes sense on a certain level — you want more of a certain thing — but if it’s not backed up by something distinctly unique, as a reader I’m hyper-aware of what’s absent.

These artists also made books, and records, and it was their doing so that brought their work to a larger audience, including me. Not everything has to be a gesture against making money. But at the same time, radical gestures suggest the benefits made in fostering community work out better in the long term than leveraging oneself to be consumed as a commodity does. This is not to suggest that McCausland or Kyle are doing something wrong that will sabotage some sort of grand plan for utopia: I’m really just riffing here. If I buy electronic music mp3s online, I’m not necessarily going to lament the death of live music performance the same way I do when buying the mp3s of a jazz act. Looking at a contemporary superhero comic that feels dire and ugly will make me nostalgic for the Mike Parobeck comics of my youth, but a contemporary black and white zine exists in a completely different universe and might not remind me of anything. Certain things make you miss the world that was more than others.

It’s also worth noting that by all accounts Patrick Kyle has a bunch of people online ripping off his style but I have successfully been able to avoid such people. While Roaming Foliage is consciously modeled after the sort of weird adventure comics of not just Powr Mastrs, but also Brian Chippendale’s If N Oof, What I am most often seeing and thinking “that’s a ripoff” is the presence of these geometrical patterns which are also similar to design choices made throughout his oeuvre. There’s a chaotic, obfuscatory energy approach to comics that he works with frequently, but so much of his other comics feel dark, melancholy, or paranoid whereas this feels much lighter in its tone. At the same time, compared to the claustrophobia of Don’t Come In Here, having his characters move about makes for an adventure narrative. Watching them wander, interact, and be given quests and goals belongs to this tradition that’s not unique to the Picturebox artists — but the feeling that this fantasy material was arrived at through adventure games like Zelda moreso than Tolkien makes for this sort of… generational level of familiarity, rather than seeming to occupy some sort of Campbellian myth-space, if that makes sense. The strangeness of Kyle’s art, where backgrounds overtake figures, suggests a sort of PC glitching, almost like the Cory Arcangel/Paper Rad collaboration Super Mario Movie, but achieved through photocopier technology of blowing up and distorting images. It is the sensation of a feeling being chased after that makes the book feel less exciting and more melancholy, though subsequently, that darker feeling might make the book slot into Kyle’s oeuvre so much that bigger fans of his might not even notice the resemblance I’m seeing.

McCausland has a list of acknowledgments in his book which includes CF alongside Herge and Otomo. I can sort of see them all, but Herge especially is an influence that’s been so widely absorbed by comics as a whole that I really only feel particularly aware of it in the case of Joost Swarte or something. McCausland’s resemblance to CF is reinforced by things as molecular as a resemblance in the lettering, which is really odd. The figures all have this youthful smallness to them, and I can’t tell if the characters are meant to be young specifically or if it’s just the way he’s learned to draw. I can see Otomo, but it’s definitely approached through the CF filter. Other trademarks, like the rendering of geometric shapes, the patterns of parallel lines, seems integrated, highlighted, by the “racetrack” premise that gives the book its name. However, he distinguishes himself because his work is more constantly busy, with the same general level of detail. There’s also these trees in the background, which seem like they’re rendered as these painted soft grey daubs, a type of texture you don’t see in CF’s darkened pencil work.

His storytelling is different, prone to large spreads, or showing the same character multiple times in a panel as they move across the landscape. (The dimensions of Eight-Lane Runaways are considerably larger than those of Powr Mastrs.) There are nonetheless panels that seem exactly like CF drawings, but with a less cryptic sense of humor. It feels more populist, like it’s based around what a person liked, and in the act of working it out, subtracted the mystery. What would’ve been a detailed “money shot” in a CF sequence is here the baseline level of drawing detail that never gets subtracted from. It’s really fascinating to me how this makes it less good, I think many people would prefer it.

I wrote most of this before learning that Anthology is releasing a new CF book next week. You can order it and see preview images at the Floating World site. You can draw your own conclusions. CF’s on his own path such that you might not even note a resemblance between his new images and McCausland’s. We’re all living on the same planet, orbiting the same sun in an expanding universe, subject to the will of an accelerating time.

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aurora-daily · 5 years

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Like A Bird In The Night: Clash Meets Aurora

Interview: AURORA for Clash by Lisa Higgins (July 4th, 2019).

Having just performed a headline slot with The Chemical Brothers at Glastonbury on Saturday night, where she was projected 50ft high onto the main stage screens, it’s hard to think of Norwegian star Aurora as the same shy and unassuming woman Clash met 10 days before in a quiet corner of a London hotel.

There to get deep with me about her third album, ‘A Different Kind Of Human’, the singer was celebrating her 23rd birthday contemplating the meaning behind her avant-garde pop sound. The new album covers everything from male suicide rates to climate change and consumerism, and Aurora is determined to empower young people to change their surroundings for the better using her compulsive natural talent for songwriting.

To be Aurora is to live with an incessant need to make music and while it can be anxiety-inducing having such a busy mind, the outcome is material of an impressive magnitude far beyond her dainty stature. And when she’s not creating other-worldly, dystopian soundscapes she’s either sober raving until 6am or listening to Slayer.

Basically this is not your average pop star.

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You spilt your concept into two albums. How do you feel now compared to when you were embarking on the whole thing?

I love not being ‘up and coming’ anymore, it’s nice to be more established. I knew the work would come out like it has. The day I released step 1 I had everything in my head for step 2. I woke up in a hotel, in London actually, and had the album in my head and I knew what I was going to do. Now I’m already making my next album. I just can’t stop.

So you give yourself no time off - the end of one album sparks the creation of the next?

It does. I have the title and tracks and the concept straight away. It’s weird how I can’t do it until I’ve released one though. I’ll cry and laugh and think about all the work I’ve done, but then I’m empty and then I fill up with something new. It’s an eternal hunt or game between me and my mind. It’s very fun.

Why did you decide to split the record into two albums in the first place?

It was while making Step One that we discussed splitting it up. I have so many songs and I realised that the whole concept was two different aspects of one process. One is internal and emotional (Step One) and about letting yourself be infected by something… but then that will turn you into 'A Different Kind Of Human' (Step Two). And when you’re a different kind of human you can change the world and do something important.

The album is about making the choice to become a different kind of human. Many people think it’s about me, because I’ve always been a bit strange or different but it’s nothing to do with me at all.

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We love the themes of nature and the environment. It often sounds as though you are singing from the top of a cliff…is that the imagery you are trying to create?

Yes, music for me is not about my own pain, relationships or breakups, I write about the world around me. I want the music to be a nature force big like a mountain, ocean or hurricane. Music for me is really big and the closest thing I’ve experience to something divine. I want people to be reminded of their inner warrior.

We’re in an important time, fighting for nature and what you believe in. I think we’re hungry for more. I write pop music and it’s very intellectual and full of emotion. I have many different styles within pop in my songs. Every song has a clear identity and asks for its own colour it’s own mood. I’m really missing meaning in pop music and I have been the last 20 years. I miss the force that we need and I believe that it’s up to individuals.

We don’t have a machine to clear the water of plastic, we have to do it by hand. It’s up to us, the people. The true power lies within the people it always has but somehow throughout history the rich leaders have made it seem like power lies with one person. But that’s so old fashioned, we’re getting out of that now, the power lies with the people. I really want to remind people of the power they have that they may have forgotten about.

Are there are artists you listened to growing up that you felt gave you this power?

I grew up in Norway without a radio or music on the TV so the only artists I listened to were Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Enya. They are really the only artists I listen to now. I like Underworld, The Chemical Brothers and rave music too, but I know very little about music. I think that’s why I started to make my own.

That’s interesting because for a lot of people, growing up with music is intrinsic. I can’t remember the first time I heard certain types of music but I did and all those influences are part of what I like now, so I suppose your music is very pure and intuitive because it has less of that?

It is very intuitive and it comes by instinct. I just make music and I produce in a way where I don’t think about where it comes from, it’s just energy. But I did learn from Dylan and Cohen that you can make something beautiful and tell something important without being condescending. I feel like a lot of music on the radio lately is underestimating people, as though they wouldn’t understand complicated music.

What’s your favourite track on the album?

'Soulless Creatures'. It means a lot to me and it’s written about giving too much. It’s Mother Earth writing to humankind about wanting to thrive again. Sometimes I don’t understand what a song means for a while. It sounds pretentious and stupid but it does happen. I just write and write all the time. I have songs already for my fifth album.

Wow you’re so prolific, you’re like the Beatles!

Yes haha! It’s very messy in my head. I have to constantly make notes and colour co-ordinate them. It takes a lot of planning!

It sounds exhausting. How do you look after yourself emotionally and mentally, having compositions weaving through your mind all the time? Obviously you love it, but it sounds tiring.

It can be, and album release week is always a mess for me, as I can’t sleep. I stay awake until 6am every night and wake up at 10am. It can be a pain in the ass trying to go to sleep and then I hear a melody and harmony and all the instrumental parts come. I record it down quickly and once it’s out of my head I feel better.

I have a very strong relationship with heavy metal. It was the first music I discovered for myself when I was 13 and I remember the force of the anger in it. People think it’s noise but it’s not. I love the polyrhythmics of it; I’m a good percussionist and that comes from my love of heavy metal. I love System of a Down, Gojira, Masterdon and Slayer.

I first went to a Gojira show in Bergen when I was 11. I find it calms me down and I can fall asleep to it. I often need to come home and put some heavy metal on, scream and dance and then make myself some dinner. If I listen to music I listen to heavy metal or Enya. But generally I find it hard to listen to any music because music is in my head all the time and I’m so afraid I will miss an idea.

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How else do you relax?

I love rave dancing; it’s my favourite thing. I’ve been to a few rave parties on boats in Paris, London and Berlin. I like the ones that are secure with no drugs and I don’t drink alcohol when I go raving because then I can really dance and I feel safer.

Dancing makes me feel comfortable in my own skin. I would recommend to everyone out there to challenge themselves a bit and go out to dance, because no one knows you. It’s very good for self growth. I’ve been 20 times in the last two years and I prefer it to dancing with friends. It’s always on evenings that I should be tired and then often I’m not home before 6am the next day.

Are there any other stand out tracks on the album?

I want to mention 'Hunger'. It’s about all our consuming, the endless hunger for money, food, clothes and how we’ve destroyed the world because of that hunger. We force ourselves to not see the people dying to make you a t-shirt because you’re hungry to buy as many T shirts that you can. We waste money and time on things that won’t make a difference.

I hate everything in fashion. I make my clothes or buy vintage. A fan gave me a piece of fabric from Indonesia that I’ve stitched into my trousers and made a top from. She carried it all the way for me and gave to me at a tiny show in Norway.

You recently wrote with The Chemical Brothers on 'Eve Of Destruction' tell me about that?

I got an email from Tom Rowlands in 2017 and he just said: Do you want to write with us? I couldn’t believe it. I don’t get starstruck but my musical respect for them is so huge and it was so nice that he asked me direct rather than through his management.

I took a week to reply because I couldn’t find the right words. Tom lives in the countryside with no phone reception. I stayed at an inn and a South African oil painter was living there in exchange for teaching the owner’s children to paint. I love to paint, so we went out together to paint by the ocean after I had been writing with Tom in the day.

It was a dream to be in the studio with Tom and all the synths. I was nervous to pitch the ideas I had but I also knew he would like it somehow. He’s such a nice guy and I felt that we are similar with our passion for music. I think one day we will make more music together.

Is there anyone else you’d like to write with?

I would love to work with Underworld. If they want my number I will happily give it out! I also love Imogen Heap, Lorde and of course, Gojira.

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#aurora #aurora aksnes #interviews #step 2 #soulless creatures #collaborations #the chemical brothers #hunger

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bobbystompy · 4 years

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68 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2019

Below are my favorite quotes from 2019. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “I don’t bitch about Millenials.

John Entwistle once complained that he didn’t understand rap. Pete Townsend said, ‘It’s not our job to understand it. It’s our job to get the fuck out of the way.’

New generations come of age. The older generation’s job is to shut up and adapt.” - @danagould

2) “I can’t do drugs with you until we kiss.”

3) “If you pay me $50 I'll show up to your funeral but stand really far away, holding a black umbrella regardless of the weather, so that people think you died with a dark and interesting secret.” - @DanaSchwartzzz

4) “A human being is a dangerous thing to let loose in a room with itself, when it cannot think.” - Roger Ebert

5) “There are no bad bourbons, only better bourbons.” - Dave Hernandez

6) “You can’t put a dollar in a kimono.”

7) “This is how it was.” - rampant takeaway from watching ‘Superbad’ several years after its release

8) “What if I had been born fifty years before you in a house on the street where you lived / Maybe I’d be outside as you passed on your bike / Would I know? / And in a wide sea of eyes, I see one pair that I recognize” - Ben Folds, ‘The Luckiest’

9) “Learn the rules so you can break them.”

10) “Nobody makes chili for two.” - Stacy Massey

11) “‘Best city in the world,’ I mutter to myself, as i adjust my ‘driving blanket’.” - Chicago resident Deanna Belos, during the 2019 Polar Vortex

12) “Dude, no one’s ever got arrested for listening to Counting Crows.” - Ricky O’Donnell, justifying late night music volume at his party

13) Bill Belichick: We’re going to have fun tonight. Rob Gronkowski: Yes we are. We deserve it. Belichick: You’re damn right. Gronk: I haven’t stepped out in like eight months. I gotta step out tonight. Belichick: I’m with you, man. I’m even going to step out. Gronk: Oh, I like it!

A Super Bowl winning exchange.

14) Center David Andrews thanked Bill Belichick for giving him "a shot".

Belichick disagreed with it.

Andrews: Thank you for giving me a shot. Belichick: A shot? I didn't give you shit. You earned it! I don't give anything.

Another Super Bowl winning exchange.

15) “We elected one of the very worst living human beings to be President, and it's exhausting. Each and every day, it's an exhausting slog, just to exist in a world where that's true.” - Michael Schur

16) “Some of y’all always picked Odd Job when you played Goldeneye and it shows” - @thedad

17) “Any app is a dating app if you try hard enough.” - Z.W. Martin (though he says it’s lifted)

18) "Once you're as woke as I am, you learn to feel bad all the time.”

19) “Everything’s a balance beam when you’re 90.” - John Dingell

20) [I wake up in a world where The Beatles never existed]

Me: Check out this song I just wrote

[I begin playing “Ob La Di Ob La Da” without having first built up years of goodwill]

Crowd of people: Wow, this sucks ass

-- @seanoneal

21) “People change people.” - Corey Matthews, Girl Meets World

22) “The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.” - William Goldman

23) “Dan could be like a difficult uncle. I didn’t love his fire-breathing conservative politics. I didn’t love the transformation that came over his novels. In Semi-Tough, he created two benighted Texas jocks and laid their prejudices bare. He was declaring himself a member of the Mark Twain coaching tree. In later books, Dan seemed to be trying to prove he could still tell a racist joke. He insisted that his memoir—the last truly immaculate piece of writing he delivered—include a tirade against political correctness. When his editor said people might be offended, Dan said, ‘Fuck people.’

There are certain writers whose style you pilfer. Certain writers whose moral fiber you try to inherit. For me, Dan represented a third category: a writer whose aura you replicate—or, failing that, try to stand in for a while.” - Bryan Curtis, on Dan Jenkins

24) “Never marry anything. Never choose. Even in love, it's better to be chosen.” - La Dolce Vita

25) “An uncluttered, uncomplicated happy ending might sound wonderful, but it’s hardly ever satisfying. Because the value of great stories lies in the tension between desire and need, between the yearning for the ideal, and the unshakable conviction that ideals don’t really exist, at least not the way we want them to. A great story should hurt a little when it leaves us. There should be some hope, but that hope should remain somewhere just an inch beyond our fingers, because that’s the truth. Even if you had all the perfect moments in the world, you’d still be reaching.” - Zach Handlen, on the Futurama series finale

26) “You can’t see him because he has sunglasses on.” - Alissa Levy

27) “The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts).” - Roger Ebert

28) “‘Are you gonna let politics ruin a friendship?’

Yes tf I am

People talk about politics as if it’s this isolated, abstract concept that only matters at election time. Somebody’s politics is their world view. It’s whether they think certain human beings deserve rights. It’s how they think the world should be. And if somebody thinks that the world should be colder, meaner, less accepting and downright hostile to people that are different to them, then sure as fuck is the friendship over.”

29) “Can the Supreme Court get me mushrooms?” - J-Papp

30) “Any song under two minutes already has a head start on its way into my heart. Just scream at me and then leave me.” - Drew Magary

31) “Long neck cold beers never broke my heart.” - Clemson Tom

32) “I’d just like to point out that the last spoken words of Game of Thrones were:

‘I once brought a jackass and a honeycomb into a brothel.’”

- @Authoroux

33) “Just once before I die, I want to toss my keys to someone and tell them ‘Bring the car around’.” - Mike Skully

34) “For all the weight they're given, last words are usually as significant as first words.” - Grand Maester Pycelle, Game of Thrones

35) “The best remedy for unrequited love is a trip around the world.” - Cheers

36) [on switching from a hotel to a motel]

Manny: I don't like the sound of that. A lot of amenities disappear when an H turns into an M. Jay: Hey when I met you, you were eating cereal out of a bucket.

-- Modern Family

37) “You and Lindsey don’t want to be ‘estranged’. Estranged is the relationship we want to have with our mothers.” - MegFil

38) “Cigarettes are undefeated.”

39) “My toes are like my fingers on my feet. I can pick stuff up with them.” - Tracy Cunningham

40) “Republicans govern without shame, Democrats shame without governing.” - Bill Maher

41) Sam: I don’t understand the vagaries of the Internet Josiah: Post often, without thought, and you’ll either get cancelled or cancel someone else.

-- Blink-155

42) “Hang a lantern on your problems.”

43) “What a weird web we weave.” - The Situation, The Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

44) “Let the ocean worry about being blue.” - Alabama Shakes, ‘Hang Loose’

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45) “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” - Shelley Rokos

46) “My whole life is the wrong porn link.”

47) “One parent can take care of 10 kids, but 10 kids cannot take care of one parent.” - Joe Gestetner, via “an old Yiddish saying”

48) “There are no heroes in the room.” - Classics of Love, ‘Gun Show’

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49) “If I am a little dismissive, it's only because of my harrowing backstory.” - Mitchell, Modern Family (on why he doesn't like sports)

50) “Every time I’m wearing black, I meet a dog.” - Tracy Cunningham

51) “Shower sex? Why would I fuck in my crying chamber” - @chridollarsign

52) “My theory about quarterbacks, having written about some of them, is you either have to believe in god or think you are a god.” - Mina Kimes

53) “The contradictions of capitalism always manifest in our lyrics if you look deeply.” - Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Riot Fest 2019

54) “Got a ‘hang loose’ from the weakside bartender.”

55) “It’s Jennifer’s birthday always.” - Eric Hutchinson

56) “I can’t think of a less relevant artist in 2019 than Kanye West. A Jesus freak in a MAGA hat. Yeah, congrats dude -- you’re every grandma who watches ‘Young Sheldon’ and mails checks to Joel Osteen now.” - Dan Ozzi

57) “The past and future are in the mind. I’m in the now.” - Tom Brady, via someone else

58) “Sometimes you walk around boring places and you feel like the most exciting thing in it.” - Drew Magary

59) “Sitting is the new smoking.” - Modern Family

60) “I'll straight up fight folks at a book club and discuss books at a fight club I really don't give a shit anymore.” - George Wallace

61) “Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.” - Rose Garvey via wine country

62) “It’s all ‘ok boomer’ until you need someone who can drive stick shift.” - @OrdinaryAlso

63) “He likes the result of the math.” - Dad, talking about my worst subject frustrating during the process but satisfying in the end

64) Stepmom: Do you want a Bears urn or Alabama urn? Dad: Ask me after they play Auburn.

65) “A cold body carries a warm heart.” - Stefanos Tsitsipas’ Instagram, after his Iceland sabbatical

66) [preparing a dish called the Sandwich of Justice with his friend’s recipe]

"The fun thing about it is when you give it to someone, you can say 'Justice is served.’ That's, uh, Ryan's line. I built my whole life on the backs of my friends." - You Suck At Cooking

67) “Usually three people can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.” - The Irishman

68) “An artist can't control who consumes their content any more than a chemist can control how their chemicals are used once they're created.” - Brian Crooks

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miyomiikonran · 5 years

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Just as I promised, I can present you a lil simple map that ilustrates my creation process on example of Takashi and Shinuo, who have the highest number of universes among my all OCs c: I had two more but didn’t add them as these aren’t really developed for now.

Questions next to arrows are supposed to show what main thought I had in mind when I was developing each of their versions. Beware the rest of this posts as notes about each universe got quite long.

Numbers show order in which universes were created but only in their case, as sometimes they were reason to create some of the worlds, while other times they were just added to already existing world because me or @ironic-artist got sudden idea.

With names, you have to forgive us, but these are just how we call them, even if these sound weird :’)

1. About Wakfu universe I already talked a lot, but it’s basically their main universe as they were created for game and animated series Wakfu. I love it’s world and individuality of each race. Here, here and here you can read about Takashi and Shinuo’s whole story. Takashi in here became a guard to make sure his father’s attempt to make their home island safe won’t go to waste and to prove himself. Shinuo, haunted with guilt for everything he was forced to participate in by his kidnappers and being aware of his healing talent, became skilled healer.

2. Basically their story thrown into modern world but because of how orphanages work and how cruel reality can be for orphaned children, it got named “bad” as Takashi turned much worse compared to his Wakfu self. Angry and impulsive Takashi decided to answer with violence to all his problems, like bulling or feeling alone and misunderstood by everyone around. Shinuo spends most of his life in hospital as stress and loss of family made his immune system issues worse. But he grew up greateful and decided to become doctor himself.

3. Purely made to enjoy our characters be happy, which in their case resulted in “what if they parents lives and could raise them?”. One of the universes where they aren’t separated for so long, but they went to different schools as Takashi is more interested in physical activities and Shinuo’s more interested in science, biology and medicine. Slight conflict frows between them because Shinuo is their father’s favourite, being the smart one. Result of me being mean, as most of the time it’s Takashi taking the spotlight :’)

4. Direct follow-up from Bad Gakuen, in which Takashi had been given a guardian by court after he badly beaten one of his classmates, but in this au, this one event got changed to more serious. Shortly speaking, Takashi got drugged during a party in the club so one of his classmates could get revenge on him by beating him up and getting some photos of him drugged. What they didn’t expect was for it to work as additional fuel for Takashi’s impulsive personality. He lost control over himself and it ended in such severe damage done to that kid, thet he died in hospital. Takashi instead of getting a guardian, got a sentence for accidental manslaughter and spent 4 years in youth detention center. It started a series of events that led him to working in mafia when he got out of it at 21 y.o. He also cut Shinuo out of his life to protect him from himself, but Shinuo’s been too stubborn to give up on him. After over 2 years of searching, he refused to let go of his crother no matter the cost and started working for the same group as Takashi, but as underground doctor, while still working legally in hospital.

5. We just like elves, so we created a world in which they’re both elves born in noble family, but with quite clash as Takashi’s all about seeing humans as inferior, but Shinuo tries to help these kept as slaves in their country- direct result of many wars and people taken captive by both sides. Shinuo also got more spotlight in that universe. In order to really help those in need, he had to stand up to their own father so he can organize a clinic which is a cover-up for hiding spot for humans and then mingle in politics to make laws a bit easier on humans, which helped him get some of them out of country, back to their homeland.

6. Au made mostly for entertainment rather than actual plot, but it’s funny to match all these characters and somehow make that circle of gods work :’D

7. Some of characters you can see in previous post and in links I gave there. Characters here have little to do with their original story versions but are rather kept intact with their personality. Takashi and Shinuo lost their parents of course, but as orphanages are almost non-existent in this universe, they were left in the streets. Shortly after were separated when their parent’s murderers tried to finish their job. Takashi ran away, while Shinuo got rescued by city guards. Afterwards Takashi worked in bar with casino despite being underage, as typical errand boy. Here he met Hidemichi who later took him in and acted as his older brother. Shinuo stayed on streets, unable to find his brother and got cared by group of gypsies and homeless people, who decided to stick together in their attempt to survive day by day. As a young teen he discovered he has some sort of healing powers, which helped this lil community greatly. This fact put him in the centre, being heart of the group and acting as sort of leader as young adult. He met Takashi while he was under Hidemichi’s care, but decided to stay with his new family, after Takashi insulted them. It’s also one of two universes in which Takashi cannonically ends up with Hidemichi, for who he fell as young adult and had a hard time with convincing Hidemichi to give it a chance despite their age difference and past connections.

8. In this one Takashi and Shinuo died with their parents, but their souls turned into yokai, about which I talked here. Takashi’s Yokai of Luck and Shinuo’s Yokai of Health c: They got included in main story when Shinuo got turned into demon by their leader, Shadow. Takashi cooperates with Shinigami trying to get his brother back, but we didn’t develop more of it for now. Whole idea had it’s root in my thoughts about some sort of evil version of Shinuo, who’s always such cinnamon roll in other universes~

9. Similar to happy gakuen and elve ones, this universe goes with idea of their parents being alive and them being raised as nobles, but with piracy included. All characters are aged-up so it makes sense for them to be where they are, Takashi being capitan of his own ship, serving in royal naval fleet and Hidemichi to be experienced pirate. Their relationship got very complicated as they stand at opposite sides, but while Takashi’s very serious about his duties and raised in respect for authority, while Hidemichi’s carefree and treats Takashi as rival rather than enemy, even falling for him in meantime. Which makes it second cannon universe for them together, as Takashi later gets doubts about good and evil sides and spares Hidemichi’s life despite being ordered to finish him after he got finally caught.

10. Just as question stated, what if they were androids of the same model but different kind designated with different purpose, in the world where androids are at inferior position compared to humans and struggle to survive? To be precise, they were prototypes that didn’t fulfill their designers’ expectations and were supposed to be taken apart to save parts. They attempted to ran away and got damaged in result, Shinuo getting critical hit and being unable to go with Takashi, who managed to get away. Shinuo was taken to the waste dump as his parts were qualified as too much of a problem to harvest after taking damage. His sight stopped working, his hearing got worse, his memory malfunctioned as well as sense of balance and he couldn’t leave on his own. In the end he was found by Rizou (by @ironic-artist) and slowly put back together despite it being very time consuming, because Rizou simply liked his rare albino appearance. Usually Rizou was coming here to harvest parts from androids damaged beyond repair and sell them or use them to repair androids in his workshop, till he found lil gem waiting for someone to help him :’)

Okay, that’s the end, I could add more details but I’m too tired after writing all of this ;u;” Let’s say it’s for all this OCtober delay I have.

#multiverse #creation process #oc-tober #october #oc #original character #wakfu #bleach #circus au #criminal au #takashi #shinuo

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sorio99 · 5 years

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Deltarune Chapter 1: The Official Undertale AU

At 6:00 AM PST, on Halloween 2018, the official Undertale twitter account released what is essentially a demo for the next game by Toby Fox, deltarune. Between the baffling intro, the odd relationship with the original Undertale, and the implied involvement of a certain missing doctor, everything about this game was shrouded in mystery.

And I loved it.

(Spoilers and Review below the cut)

Part 1: The Story

At first glance, most people assumed this mysterious new game would be a sequel (or possibly prequel) to Undertale. After all, it involves a number of shared characters, the titular rune was prominently featured in Undertale, and even the name “Delta rune” is an anagram for “Undertale”.

However, the relationship between the two is much stranger, and the plots are largely unconnected.

After creating an avatar and having the game unceremoniously throw it in the garbage, you play as Kris (that lovely person up there), the human child of Asgore and Toriel, and younger sibling to Asriel Dreemurr. Right off the bat, about a million questions are raised, especially since later conversations indicate Kris has at least been living with the Dreemurrs’ since they were too young to know their species, but we’ll come back to that.

Toriel drives you to school, though still get there late, and Alphys (who is your teacher here) puts you in a group with Susie, the only student to show up after you, to work together on a group project. However, when she realizes she doesn’t have any chalk, she sends the two of you to go get some from the school’s broom closet. You catch Susie eating chalk, she threatens to eat your face but doesn’t, and you head off to the broom closet.

Then things get weird.

After that, it sort of follows a plot line similar to the original: you fall into another world, there’s a bunch of monsters you can either fight or spare, and you just have to keep going up and to the left to fulfill a prophecy & get to the exit, all while dealing with ambiguously evil characters who are more silly than dangerous. It is, however, a bit shorter, with only about ten unique enemies and only three areas in the whole game. But hey, it is technically just the first chapter, so what do you expect.

Of course, what really makes an Undertale is the characters. Since you’re in a different world for most of the game, the returning characters from Undertale don’t have much of a presence outside the very beginning and very end. Instead, we focus on a handful of new characters, all of whom are pretty well-rounded and developed, with the exception of Kris, our silent, somewhat-ambiguously-gendered protagonist. Susie, in particular, goes through a pretty nice character arc, going from someone who’d casually threaten to rip your face off and eat it, to an actual antagonist at one point, before eventually working her way back to being a good guy and someone you can actually be friends with! It’s definitely the strongest arc in the game so far.

There’s also Lancer!

He’s a villain.

And not a skeleton.

Just trust me on this.

Part 2: Presentation

Just to get it out of the way, the music is fantastic. Of course it is. It’s an Undertale spinoff and, more importantly, it’s made by Toby “Radiation” “I could shit out a better soundtrack than most of you will ever even imagine” Fox.

I will however say that I prefer Deltarune’s sound design in general to Undertale, though. Don’t get me wrong, Undertale still has the better OST (for now at least), but Deltarune’s sound effects JUST beat it out in my books. In particular, I felt like the text sounds for most of the characters was, on average, less annoying than in Undertale. Again, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Undertale’s voices, but some of them could get a little ear-grating, especially for characters who talked a LOT throughout the game. Here, with the exception of one returning character (where the irritation was kind of the joke anyways), all of them work really well. There’s even a tiny bit of voice acting from a couple of the more important characters! So, big thumbs up there.

More pressingly, however, are the visuals. In case it wasn’t obvious from the above screenshots (aside from that second one of Lancer, maybe), the graphics have gotten a MAJOR glow up since the last game. Temmie Chang, aka “Most Precious Meme”, is still the main Artist for the game, and Undertale is by no means a bad looking game. However, in general, the games’ art went from “Beautiful and sometimes even breathtaking” to consistently “HOLY SHIT MY EYES ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO COPE WITH SUCH SHEER BRILLIANCE!!!”

You think I’m exaggerating, but I legit dropped my jaw at a lot of this game’s visuals. I mean, just look at this one End-game animation!

I think this one short scene has more detail and frame than Asgore’s overworld sprite got in the entirety of Undertale.

On the slight downside, however, we no longer get the full-body monochromatic battle sprites from Undertale, as enemies appear in battle almost identically to how they appear in the world. Still, with this much more detail in overworld sprites, it’s not even a slight loss.

Speaking of battle...

Part 3: Gameplay

Yep, the gameplay has gotten a major overhaul over the past three years. First, as the screenshot should make obvious, you have a team now! Yep, in addition to Kris, you can get up to three additional party members over the course of your adventure, including Susie!

In general, what you can do in battles with Kris is mostly the same; you can Fight by hitting the button at the right time, Act in certain ways to make the enemies not want to fight you, use an Item really quick, or Spare an enemy who you don’t want to kill. You also have the option to defend, which will lessen the damage you take if you get hit during the obligatory bullet-hell attacks your enemies dish out.

Where things get really interesting, though, is the team mechanics. You see, every character is different, and everyone but Kris can use magic (although some of Kris’s ACT commands kinda seem like magic?). However, only Kris can directly ACT, with other party members only being able to preform certain set spells. So, instead, Kris can command the other party members to perform actions, or Kris can ACT while the others defend, use items, or attack. If you use a Team ACT, the other party member(s) involved won’t be able to do anything else that turn, but said Team ACTs are usually more powerful or potent as a result. The whole thing can set up for actually strategic choices in battle: In Undertale, since most enemies only had one or two ways to spare them, the most strategy you could use on a Pacifist play through was “Which enemy should I deal with first?” Here, you have to figure how you’re going to handle each encounter. Do you have Kris ACT first, then have another party member spare that monster in the same turn? Or do you act WITH that party member, and next turn be able to spare at least two monsters?

In addition to the battle system being reworked, there were a number of smaller, quality of life changes:

You now have three item categories: Items (your standard consumables), Gear (your armor and weapons), and Key Items (your cellphone and a couple other important things).

You can sell at pretty much every shop in the “Dark” world, which makes sense, since you’re mostly selling food, armor, and weapons-things people in this world would need to survive.

Each character in your party uses a different kind of weapon, but all of them use the same armor, and you can give them all two pieces of armor each, so you can stack defense and get extra boosts!

Choices are mostly presented in a cross pattern, so you just have to pick a direction and confirm to choose that option.

THERE IS NOW A RUN BUTTON AND IN THE OPTIONS YOU CAN CHANGE SO YOU AUTO-RUN AND THE RUN BUTTON IS JUST A WALK BUTTON!

And speaking of which, YOU CAN ACCESS THE MENU FROM WITHIN THE MAIN GAME! THANK YOU!

You can also have up to three save files at once, although I’ve heard each file has some minor differences in flavor-text across the game, so be on the look-out for that.

Overall, I feel like I honestly prefer the game play to Undertale. In fact, with the exception of the story (which is mostly underdeveloped because, again, this is basically just a very long demo), I honestly prefer most of Deltarune to Undertale. While it isn’t technically a sequel, per se, it does do what any good sequel should do: use the original as a starting point and just improve almost everything. It’s almost like the Bioshock Infinite to Undertale’s Bioshock, if that makes sense.

(Would that make System Shock 2 Homestuck? Am I over thinking this?)

Now, with the actual review out of the way, we can get to the main event.

Part 4: Co̞͞n̤̠͎̙̥̗n̸̰̜̳͚͓͇͍e̸͈͉̳̺c̭̮̬̖̭̗̳͠t͍͓͘i̖̺͙͇̟̫o̢̰̜̦n͈̮̼͈͎͖̦s͈͝ ̹̙̦͈̯̜A̡̟̥ņ̥͙̗d̛͙̤̦͈̹̪͚ ̺T͍̞h̡̜̝̟̬e͏̱̹̲ͅ ͕̯̰͍̜͇͍D͝oc̜t̸̺̱̯͙̠o̷̱r͈̟̣̤̯

As I mentioned before, this game isn’t technically a sequel to Undertale. None of the events of Undertale seem to have occurred in this universe, including (seemingly) things from before the game even began. This becomes especially apparent after you leave the “Dark” world and can explore town, talking to various people. Character relationships are almost universally reset, there is no mention of the “Underground”, and considering Asriel is still alive and in college, it’s safe to say there is no Flowey in this world. It could almost be passed off as a complete alternate continuity, or even a reboot, if it weren’t for a few...

oddities.

Yep, among the returning characters, Sans makes an appearance, having apparently just moved into town and never having met you before. Despite having apparently met Toriel the night before in the grocery store, and having a business relationship with your teacher, Alphys. Plus, there's the fact that what used to be Grillby’s and the Bone Brother’s house both look WAY too close to there original versions (no other building looks that similar), the fact that of ALL the returning characters, only Sans looks the exact same (no redesign, visible aging, or even new clothing), and the fact that some of Kris’s dialogue choices seem to reference things that haven’t happened in this universe, and other characters notice them acting...different.

Plus, you know, there’s Chapter 1′s ending.

Yeah.

(Plus, as you might have noticed at the top of this part, there’s a monster who is the only one in either game who looks similar to this Gaster Follower)

All of this seems to point to something much more sinister going on. And, for those who haven’t seen it, the tweets leading up to the demo’s release might just explain why.

Now, we aren’t quite sure who this is supposed to be, but judging by their vocabulary and how they type, it’s a pretty safe assumption we’re being chatted to by our favorite former royal scientist. And, sure enough, most people are assuming that this entity is at least some version of Dr. W. D. Gaster. Why is he doing this? What does it all mean? Why was the Delta Rune even slightly relevant to the plot of this chapter aside from there being three prophesied heroes?

Well, I suppose only time will tell.

Until then...

L̴͙̖̠̕è̘̝͚̯̩̘ͅt͔͎͖̝͎̼͘͢ ̷͎̮͘ù̴̹̘̮̰̙̮̮̘͝s̵̷̫̠͎̯͙̥͟ͅ ͍͍̤̟͇͕̺ͅh̨̼̼͕̠ą̶̛̦̫̼v̺͞e̸͎̭̱͍̭͞͠ ͖̩̳͕͔͚͚̝̱s̘̭̩͜͟ơ҉̥͖̯͟m̞̠͈e̷͔͖̭ͅ ́҉̤͔͎̫̣̥̱͚̲ḿ̶̩̼̙̪̻̝̥͟o̗͇̩͇̠͍͟r̡͖͇̤̗͔͈̕͠e̶̝̠͔͈̭̟ ̷̫̬̺̮͔̣F̢̗̘̟̯͈̜͖͕͈͞Ų̴͍̜͚̘̠̞͈͇̀N҉̡̣̺̝̩̘͓ͅ.̷̩̹͓̯͝

S̛̪̦͉͎̙̀h̴͇͈͡á̤̣̫̬l̷̬̤͓͈͟ͅl͚͚̙̦̙̣̱̺ ̳̗̩͍̱̤̦͈̣w̡͔é͔̝̹̻̜͎̞͝?͜҉̣̣̥̫͎͎ͅ

#undertale #deltarune #delta rune #deltarune spoilers #delta rune spoilers #tagged both ways because i'm not sure which is the correct formatting #and no I will NOT stop doing this. ever

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ballandcone · 6 years

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I’m absolutely enamored with your work, the emotion it elicits I can’t put to words, but I wish I could. Is it weird if I ask what the inspiration behind it is? I never seen something quite so unique and inexplicable and I’d love to know more about it

Thank-you!!

Here, from a few years ago, is an interview that Claire Donner of the excellent donnerpartyofone tumblr conducted with me via email:

Q: People seem to like origin stories. What is the origin of Ball and Cone?

In the fall of 1976 while in grad school, I made my first oil painting, a dreamy image of a small brick house with a tall cone standing just outside the open front door and, visible through a window, a blue ball in on corner of the warmly lit interior. (Neither object had eyes or feet.) In retrospect, I think it was about my anxiety over having gotten married just a few months earlier; I wasn’t quite all in psychologically. The following spring, I gave the painting to my best friend from high school Dell Trecartin and his bride Cathy as a wedding present. For many years, it resided in their basement rec room in Ohio, an enduring presence for their two sons, one of whom grew up to become the famous video and performance artist Ryan Trecartin. Years later, Ryan told me that the painting had fascinated him when he was little and that it influenced him more than any other artwork he knew of. After he finished art school, he appropriated it and took it with him to the various cities he lived and worked in with his entourage of collaborators and hangers on. And it came to pass that on arriving in Philadelphia some years later that it was stolen from the roof of his car, to which it had been tied. A tragic loss. After that I thought that I should make a new version of the painting. A few months ago I made a small drawing inspired by its memory. I made the ball and cone more explicitly anthropomorphic than they were in the original painting. That was “Ball and Cone 1,” in which Cone looks in through a window at Ball, who is sitting on the floor looking sleepy and bored.

Q: The floor of what? It seems like the adventures of Ball and Cone always take place either inside an unfurnished architectural space or in plain air, but you almost never see the outsides of the buildings, or what sort of larger environment they are in.

A: What almost always seems to be going on has to do with relationships between inside and outside. When Ball and Cone are inside, they are looking out or in a process of going out. Their shadowy doppelgangers often are looking in at them. Crossing over the boundary between one state and the other is a recurring drama in Ball and Cone. Apropos of this, my mother sent me this bit about a psychological phenomenon called “the event boundary” (I forget where she got it from):

“Ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind, only to completely forget what that purpose was?

Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses.

Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what’s known as an event boundary in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next.

Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale. Thank goodness for studies like this. It’s not our age, it’s that stupid door!”

Q: Speaking of states of mind, it is remarkable how much emotion you seem to get out of characters whose only expressive faculty is a single eyeball. I have a theory that when the reader takes in the on-panel circumstances, they project their own feelings back on to Ball and Cone - but maybe that’s not giving credit due to your bold, stark cartoons. What is your secret?

A: Somehow the mind/brain system has a way of enriching what enters consciousness through your optical equipment and through your other senses. This is happening all the time whether you’re looking at “real” things in the world or images on a flat surface. The excitement of comics is in the way the mind fills in a relatively meager sensory input to create experiences of extraordinary emotional, cognitive and imaginative depth and breadth. I like to play with how little is needed to make that happen. One of the not-so-secret secrets of Ball and Cone is that they are like children in a perplexing, sometimes scary, sometimes fun world. I guess that’s something everyone has lots of feelings about. I know I do.

Q: This makes a lot of sense to me, because I often unconsciously superimpose the idea of “rods and cones” over Ball and Cone. Maybe this is also because their entire faces are composed of a single eyeball. It is interesting that their adventures are so emotionally charged, since the presence of threat is felt, but the nature of the threat is unclear. For instance, you have an episode in which Ball and Cone are actually murdered, but it doesn’t wind up being a big problem for them. Similarly, there’s a sense of intimacy between Ball and Cone, but it isn’t any clearer than the basic idea of a companionship; they could be siblings or romantic partners or in a parental relationship, but they’re not telling. Do you deliberately exploit this kind of vaguery for its emotional potential, or is the writing part of Ball and Cone more of a free association process?

A: Nothing I do with Ball and cone is conceptually premeditated in the way my answers here might suggest. I work out of some combination of image and feeling. What I’m trying to do most deliberately is making something funny. They’re not called “comics” for nothing.

That said, the comic is, for me, a kind of philosophical playground. It seems I tend to think in terms of universal sorts of relationships and situations. That’s why the comic is so abstract. So companionship seems to me a kind of relationship that any two people can be in together. At first I thought that Ball and Cone’s relationship might be sexual, but then it seemed that would over-determine certain types of situations and events. It would be more about the relationship between them than about their relationship as friends to the situations that befall them and the actions they undertake. For Ball and Cone as traveling companions the possibilities seem more open-ended.

The experiences they undergo also are universal: being inside and outside; going from one place to another; watching and being watched; following and being followed; being bored, being excited; feeling safe and feeling scared; being trapped and escaping entrapment, and so on. The things that they do and that happen to them are things that all people do and experience.

A major theme has to do with being limited. They only have one eye each and they don’t have arms. Real humans would be like gods to them. But real humans are limited, too: why don’t we have eyes in the backs of our heads or four rather than two arms? Being limited is a condition of being. But so is over-coming limitations. Despite their inadequacies, Ball and Cone have some pretty interesting adventures.

Having said all that, it remains a wonder to me that they elicit emotional responses in me and in their readers.

Q: You are not from a comics background in the strictest sense, neither personally nor professionally. How did you decide to convert the concept of an old painting to an ongoing web comic? Are there certain comic artists that have inspired you?

A: When I made the first few drawings last April, I knew there would be more to come, but I had no idea it would become a web comic. A friend insisted that I start posting on tumblr, which I didn’t know much about. The comic format was something I played with back in the late 70s and early 80s. (See image, a pencil and gouache from back then).

I’ve always loved the comic style and the intersection of Pop, Surrealism and Psychedelia. Some favorite artists include John Wesley and Jim Nutt. From the comic world: R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Charles Burns and Lynda Barry. Too many others to mention here. And, of course, Krazy Kat.

Q: Indie comix have experienced a huge revival in recent years, but curiously, the most successful creators don’t reflect the hairy, wet aesthetic rebellion of the ‘60s underground, but rather the hygienic, adorable affectations of Japanese consumer imagery. Ball and Cone don’t really look like anything so easily namable as Astro Boy or Hello Kitty, but they are awfully kawaii on their own terms. If it was important in the 1960s to defy or pervert expectations of cuteness from cartoon characters, is it important in some different way to embrace or exploit cuteness now? What are your feelings on cute?

A: Of his time drawing cards for the American Greetings Corporation, R. Crumb recalled, “My boss kept telling me my drawings were too grotesque. I was trained to draw ‘cute’ little neuter characters, which influenced my technique, and even now my work has this cuteness about it.” Crumb seems abashed about the cuteness in his work, but without it I doubt it would be nearly as compelling. I think I would lose interest in Ball and Cone if they weren’t so darn cute. It’s kind of embarrassing, though, a grown man doing these cute little things. What’s that about?

An interview with a philosopher named Sianne Ngai I came across recently went a long way to helping me understand. She wrote a book called “Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting.” At the start of the interview, she explains, “I’m interested in states of weakness: in “minor” or non-cathartic feelings that index situations of suspended agency; in trivial aesthetic categories grounded in ambivalent or even explicitly contradictory feelings. More specifically, I’m interested in the surprising power these weak affects and aesthetic categories seem to have, in why they’ve become so paradoxically central to late capitalist culture. The book I’m currently completing is on the contemporary significance of three aesthetic categories in particular: the cute, the interesting, and the zany.” I love how seriously Ngai takes these topics and how much she unpacks from them. Here’s more on cuteness: “The asymmetry of power that cuteness revolves around is another compelling reminder of how aesthetic categories register social conflict. There can be no experience of any person or object as cute that does not somehow call up the subject’s sense of power over those who are less powerful. But, as Lori Merish underscores, the fact that the cute object seems capable of making an affective demand on the subject—a demand for care that the subject is culturally as well as biologically compelled to fulfill—is already a sign that “cute” does not just denote a static power differential, but rather a dynamic and complex power struggle.”

Reading this makes me think that in making cute comics I’m doing something really important. But if I wasn’t feeling rebellious against the idea of importance – preferring the trivial, the silly and the stupid – there wouldn’t be much fun in it. It’s all very paradoxical in my mind when I think about it.

Q: Rebellion against importance sounds like a pretty good agenda. However, you come from a comparatively “important” high culture background, and your ostensibly low brow comic isn’t totally immune to its influence. For instance, the main threat in most of Ball and Cone’s scarier adventures is simply being seen, with multiple panels and story arcs revolving around being pursued, spotted and spied upon; the idea of gazing as an act of aggression is an obsession for lots of fine artists, photographers and filmmakers. Do you sense yourself importing ideas from other disciplines?

A: The ideas animating Ball and Cone that interest me most come less out of art than out of philosophy, in which seeing is a huge topic. The relationship between what we see – or, what we think we see – and what mind-independent reality might be like has been endlessly pondered by thinkers from Descarte to Derrida and beyond. For Aristotle, a basic feature of human consciousness is a capacity for wonder and a drive to understand, which we satisfy much of the time by looking at the world and, metaphorically, looking inward. Most of the time, it seems to me, Ball and Cone are looking as if they’re just wondering what is going on in any given situation. They just want to understand. The gazes of the black Ball and Cone may seem possibly menacing, but it’s hardly ever clear that they pose any kind of real threat. But the dynamics of looking, seeing and being seen do have to do with power, as the seer usually has, at least momentarily, the advantage over the seen. So there is a certain political dimension that probably relates to voyeurism as a feature of modern life at least as reflected in photography and movies.

Another kind of seeing involves not optical perception but an ability to “see past” or “through” surface reality as registered by our senses. That’s just something that cognitive intelligence does. Sometimes it’s called insight. You “see” some underlying pattern that is invisible to ordinary vision. Often the same thing may be seen in different ways, and seeing something one way may preclude seeing it another way. That’s what the duck-rabbit figure is about, a favorite topic for Wittgenstein. When seeing from a singular perspective meets an apparently ambiguous reality that seems to change depending on how it is seen: that’s a moment I think I’m always hoping Ball and Cone will encounter, wonder about and try to understand by looking. It’s a moment when the nature of mind comes at least hazily into view. You have to look in order to see. Then you see your own seeing.

Then there’s the possibility of being able to see through reality as delivered by our senses to a metaphysical or transcendental reality that has no material being but exists nevertheless in some world-determining way. Nothing I’ve experienced in my life convinces me that such a realm exists, but I’ve always loved the fantasy of it. It’s a fantasy that urges a kind of mental adventuring, because as Hegel writes, whatever might be there to be seen will ever exist only be virtue of someone going there to see it:

“It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless WE go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may SEE as that there may be something behind there to be seen.”

I think that’s why windows and windows within windows – as well as doorways and other openings in the fabric of the picture – figure so often in Ball and Cone.

Q: One final question: everyone knows that young artists are probably just going to starve, so do you have any advice for young philosophers?

A: I love philosophy but I’m not a professional philosopher, so I wouldn’t know what kind of career advice to give a young philosopher other than, in the immortal words of Joseph Campbell, “follow your bliss.” The best advice I ever heard from a real philosopher about reading philosophy was from my friend Nick Pappas, a professor at CUNY. I mentioned in an email that I’d been dipping into Hegel and Heidegger and finding their writings strangely repetitious and opaque yet somehow hair-raising. I wrote, “Were those guys on drugs or something? They sound like stoners to me,” to which Nick replied, “H. and H. both have the stoner’s obsessive attention to – well, to everything. And one thing I try to learn from them but especially from Heidegger and the best Heideggerians who came after him: not to be in a hurry. Let other writings get to the point. Philosophy is on its own clock.” I love that. We are obliged to obey hurrying clocks all the time. In art and philosophy, we can enter other, less utilitarian time zones. What, after all, is the rush?

http://ballandcone.tumblr.com/post/62988401247/my-name-is-ken-johnson-and-i-am-the-author-of

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myfriendpokey · 6 years

Text

flat pak

i went to now play this last weekend and had a good time! there was a flatgames room, and a panel, and the latter made me think about some nightmarish circumstance where someone was questioning me about what the point of these things was. the three posts below are all pseudo-answers i sketched out.

1. i like how sexless videogames are, and how bad at representing humanity in general, i like that even hyperviolent games have this wistfulness about them, as if the only way they can grasp the human body is as it comes apart - in some provisional, stateless shape contained in but seperate from the game systems, a ghost, like those mysteriously elaborate and collisionless death animations the enemies in old shooters got before dissolving into goo. or as if they hoped the exuberance of their own approach was enough to break the carapace of the format and let something, anything, seep in from the outside....

the little guys in videogames are a gentler convention, but they're always on the verge of the same dissolution - the sketchiest of outlines, of features, a ball, a shape, with eyes and feet. like drawing yourself with your eyes closed - the crudest and most temporary kind of projection or self-fashioning. staring nervously and chomping as it waddles through the maze, eating things, breaking apart instantly when it bumps into someone, and given an equally temporary name such as walky or go-go. i love this dorkiness, this daydream of the body as a soap-bubble, so alienated that the slightest recognition feels like intimacy.

2. flatgames are 'flat' in the sense of projecting a multi-level videogame hierarchy into a single plane; the archetypical flatgame gesture is being able to walk across the textboxes. rather than systems they represent collections - collections of effects treated as independent of the wider process they'd ordinarily portray, which can then be grouped and moved around seperate from that process. so it's a personal, subjective format in the sense that the new groupings sort of mirror the groupings produced when various external effects are flattened into single moments of subjective experience, of memory. but it's also a personal format just because it's easy to use - because in many circumstances it's easier to just drag and drop text around rather than create a universal system that handles when and how it'll be displayed, as in all those unity horror games that have gui elements just sort of hanging around in space for you to bump into. and i think this is something that kind of grinds interestingly against the idea of videogames as inherently systematic, inherently good at portraying systems - like, in what way are they systematic when it's become easier NOT to be systematic? at what point do those "systematic" features become a mannerism, while the very easiness of bad game design means it starts to cleave more rigorously to the contours of actual material life and practice, to the way we really use computers rather than the ways we'd like to use them?

this is not to say systems don't exist. but their relationship with even the most system-y videogames is weird - to what extent are these games exploring a system rather than expressing a sense of systematicity, an aesthetics of system not dissimilar to those of puzzles, criticism, and the mystery novel? on one hand we know that a lot of systemic elements are hand-tweaked by developers in order to feel less jarring to our impression of the whole (dice rolls being the most common) - on the other we know from previous twitter threads about exactly these kinds of "cheats" that they can outrage players who learn they exist. which suggests it's not any specific quality or experience associated with a game system but the idea of systematicity itself that's being sold -- as indeed with the famous "100 hours of gameplay" tag, which does not express a type of content so much as a promise that this content has been regulated and formatted in ways which allow it to be sold in this very matter-of-fact way. the idea of systematicity as a deliberately conveyed aesthetic impression feels worth investigating, particularly given ten million youtube videos with names like "gun-shot teen DESTROYED with Logic" and "univeral reason under attack: why braingeniousmasculinist should be unbanned from club penguin" - evidently the impression of sanguine impersonality and indifference to the merely "personal" is a highly popular and profitable one online....

in a more material sense, too, we can query this systematicity. a videogame with handdrawn paper graphics is obviously not "de-mystifying" the process of making games, since the physical object had to be digitalised and cleaned up and imported and processed before it could be used. one of the stranger things in videogames is that naivete is a technological affordance - i can use crude handdrawn graphics because the computer has enough memory not to force me to compress it all into 8x8 sprites (unless i really want it to, as with deliberately limited bespoke engines). but at the same time it really is de-mystifying, because it emphasises the extent to which game development takes place at the intersection between multiple different areas of digital technology (not to mention human labour). 3d model textures can be paintings or photographs or heavily treated, processed combinations of the two - the photographs or paintings used can be original or purchased from various weird economies of commercial asset packs - the artistic coordination of those assets can take place over skype or similar with the reference of multiple other digital image files, scavenged from online to give an idea of the total look. i don't mean to suggest that these multiple intersections are so complex that they cease to be "systematic" - but i do think that grasping it as a real system also means coming to terms with the ways in which it can be structurally unsystemisable, like fredric jameson's description of globalization as "untotalizable totality". when the most important features of the discrete operations of a computer are that they take place at a scale and speed no human can replicate, recasting exactly those operation into a human scale can confuse more than it clears up [much like this post].

thinking about videogames more generally as revolving around not an inherent systematicity but rather an image of / desire for the same, around that imagination of systematicity which is bound up with consumer technology as a whole. i feel like at each moment in history this systematicity has some privileged form of social identification associated with it: i've lost count of the pulpy books i've read which had some villainous saint-just analogue, maybe one obsessed with clocks or measuring things, who imposes some cruel and rigid revolutionary "system" on the basically warm and laissez-faire vassals below... system as political imposition. but medieval writers might have connected the same sense of systematicity more immediately with that of the kingdom of god, with the underlying structure which makes those warm laissez-faire moments possible to begin with. sometimes system appears in media as bureaucracy and ritual, sometimes it's as a challenge to bureaucracy and ritual, galileo's "and yet it moves" or those movies where someone comes up with a brilliant new way to win sports matches or sell sub-prime mortgages against all the prevailing wisdom. on the basis of this extremely rough idea, what could we imagine being the privileged form that systematicity appears in the everyday today? not capitalism or high finance, which while systematic can also be too broad or naturalised to appear so in this immediate way... not politics, not the internet. but maybe ON the internet, and for me "system" appears most visibly online in the question of personal information and how it's tracked. all those notifications of websites using cookies clicked through, terms and amendments to terms scrolled past, online shopping histories suddenly reoccuring by ads for the same products you looked at appearing in the background of another site - all these are re-impositions, re-appearances of systemicity through the vague fugue of internet experience. and which pop up in the more public sphere as an ominous black site, with the full scope or implications sealed away behind byzantine layers of corporate procedure and nondisclosure. the sense of system here is one of intransigence, blockage - it's divorced from the idea that knowing the system would give one the power to change it, because here the system is exactly what makes that knowledge impossible in the first place. maybe that sense of the failure of systemic knowledge is connected to the world depicted in flatgames, in which that knowledge no longer exists - niall moody's "the craigallen fire" contains historical information and real places, but the words hang eerily across the digital picture as if unsure how to relate to it, as if coming from a long way away. but the movement away from representational systematicity is a move towards material systemicness, in the clarity and concreteness with which flatgames approach their own practice, so maybe we should consider this withdrawal as strategic - as an effort to build new systems, rather than being pulled into the daydream of the old.

3. part of the pleasure, for me, in making flatgames, was the sense of feeling able to postpone indefinitely some kind of mechanical reckoning - the feeling of being able to use pacing and visual structure to ward off the dread that any minute now i'd have to settle down and make a real game. in a weird way it connects to what i enjoy about very fussy, technical games - grinding in an rpg means deferring the point at which you actually have to begin playing the rpg, both in the sense of being challenged and in the sense of actually having to sit down and learn all the systems, just as savescumming your way through megaman 3 is to giddily skate around the dread prospect of actually playing megaman 3. there is no point where you have to work out what happens if you die or walk off the map, there is no point where you have to say to the player "okay, you have to focus now". the horror of paying attention and the joy of not having to! a moment of those moralist rituals held in temporary suspense, as if time itself has frozen and you're free to walk among it, underneath paused mechanisms that would ordinarily be crushing you... and the awareness of that suspense somehow makes your own delicacy greater, as if one of the machines you wandered through was your own life, and you could hover precariously inside it... a soap bubble, the merest bug-eyed phantom, newly christened something like walky or go-go....

[image credits - street fighter iii: second impact - pippols - space fantasy zone - marchen veil - bandits 9)

#flatgames #writing #vg.#pippols

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movingimage · 4 years

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Koyaanisqatsi Notes

-Starts off with quite ominous music with a deep voiced man saying the title of the documentary in a prayer like tone.

-The first image looks like cave paintings then transitions into an explosion that looks to be in a factory.

-All this is happening with the first song/prayer happening.

-My first impressions is that it is a very abstract and artistic film.

-The second scene proceeds to change song into a more mellowed but sorta religious song as the camera, shot from either a drone or helicopter unveils a barren landscape of a dessert, the music really entwines with the visuals creating an almost alien feeling for this environment.

-The composition is beautiful and has definitely been thought out, the cinematographer uses the shadows of these mountains as part of the landscape as much as the physical land itself, I believe this opening cinematic is meant to examine the beauty of nature.

-So far I really like the beginning of this. It has brought intrigue into what the doco is about but it also is just a very beautiful and enchanting thing to watch and observe.

-By the ten minute mark we finally get to see some colour in the sky and forestry which as of yet has not been there or very minimal to notice.

-I feel like the director is slowly opening the world to us to digest bit by bit.

-12:10 the landscape changes to skyscapes , of rolling clouds erupting into the air.

-14:10 the transition from cloud to the whites of a waterfall and then further into shots of the sea and water.

-The director does an excellent job at transitions each one is seemless and as there is no dialogue it tells the story of the land so well.

-16:40 we see our first sign of humans with the eruption of the earth, using to what I think is bombs.

-Showing our destructive tendencies.

-The shots of humanities impact onto the earth clearly showcases that we are an interference, an obscurity in the landscape of the natural world.

-By being shown almost 16 minutes of just natural landscapes the viewer really gets a grasp of the alien like qualities we impact onto the landscape, no more natural curves, now it is symmetry and lines.

-When humans are shown it is usually to coincide with our destruction, in my opinion symbolising the destruction of the natural cycle.

-The things we create are so unnatural.

-Around 23:00 the music changes to this choir singing jolly arias and people looking up to the sky, the music sounds so “we are gods” if you get what I mean, the camera transitions to huge towers and plains.

-I think this part is to show how we have sorta overcome our natural bonds and how we think we are godlike in our way of technology, dominating every form of natural development

-With all these highways and roads, from above we look like ants all following an unforeseen path.

-It is so much work, so many shots of so many different ways of life. I believe it must be found footage as well as the other shots cause the workload that has been created is immense.

-One shot is a POV with a camera strapped to the back of a jet, looking like a POV of a bird, I think this is another comparison to us evolving ourselves.

-All this creativity came at such a cost however and at 30:30 we start to see bombs explosions, the loss we have endured to get to where we are. I believe this is stating the scourge that technology has also done to humankind and the planet

-At 33:09 a beautiful shot of an obviously bombed city centre as it zooms out we can see the extent of the trauma.

-36:40 starts to show man made demolitions of buildings. Hundreds of them.

-At 39:20 a series of time lapses with completely still cityscapes but clouds flying like a Hungry sea, I’m still trying to think of What it means but I find it real interesting how the cityscape is never changing but nature is ongoing. Maybe it’s stating that in time we will be nothing and it will just be these still cities, while nature still follows its course and continues.

-41:10 starts off with sounds like the noise of a beehive and shows visuals of thousands of people waiting for lines or in groups. We are so advanced but we still follow those animal imstincts but now we have pretty outfits to go alongside us. It shows humanity as clueless, stumbling round not really knowing where to go.

-I feel like this is sorta filmed in chapters with a different subject and theme for each one.

-At one point around 45:00 there was many time lapses of green buildings with lights going on an off and cars racing round like fireflys, I didn’t know what it meant then but I think it was talking about us going into the age of electricity and movement.

-I feel like we are getting more familiar to the city.

-There was a lot of destruction from the war and now we are rebuilding ourselves, I think this, because as before it showed humans sorta stuck and not walking but now all of a sudden we a thriving with this jovial music that coincides with the visuals of people nipping around now being busy, getting stuff done.

Humanity has finally come to terms with our powers and we are thriving.

-We’ve now got machines doing what we used to have to do, no more sorting mail, packing food or creating clothes, we have become masters of our technology, creating bounties that we would never have dreamt about a century ago. We have essentially escalated past nature at this point.

-Just realised but this is the same “we are gods” song the director played when we first created the planes and high rises.

-I really think this is showing humans getting back on track.

-53:10 showing the creation of recreational entertainment, cinemas, game machines, bowling alleys, malls, shops, fastfood joints.

-humanity is consuming so much.

-It is showing how efficient we’ve become in making almost anything whether it is cars or jammy dodgers, we have learnt to coexist With the technology weve created. It is more incorporated into everyday life.

-59:00 a great and very scary shot of machines making machines. Technology has come to overbear on all we do.

-1:06:00

Very abstract now the music sounds very space like or distant and very calm. It continues with images of compute routers but every now and then they would put a satellite (google earth type) image in the mix and you can see how similar the two are, as a society we are becoming more and more robotic in the way we live. To the extent that from above with all the lights and roads we can’t even distinguish us from a computer router.

-1:11:06

That old prayer like music is finally back and we watch footage of everyday people but it’s up close and each person looks more and more hopeless, we see their eyes and they are empty. With all this technological development we have forgot the meaning of being human and from that people have voids in their souls that all this entertainment and industry will never fulfill.

-Shots of homeless, cripples people in hospitals,it shows the people we have forgotten.

-The director really loves to hold onto his shots, when he shoots these people on the street, he does not waver away and instead sticks onto people’s gaze like a hunter, capturing every emotion whether it be annoyance, happiness or insecurity. He attacks it.

-01:16:14

We see what is the thrusters of a rocket igniting, we follow it up into the sky and as it gets higher and higher the title word KOYAANISQATSI starts its chant and With that we see the shuttle erupt into a ball of flame and we follow the long descent of the shuttle cabin as it plummets to the earth. I believe this is a message of aspirations, how far can humanity keep travelling up the unnatural ladder until we fall to ash.

-1:20:00 we see the same cave paintings that we were shown at the start and the chanting stops this obviously implying us going back to the stone ages.

-With the first shot of the cave and the huge explosion, I can only assume that is the creator of the doco saying an error If humanity is ending.

-I think the documentary is about the cycle of humanity. Our relationship with the earth and nature and how our aspirations with technology can be our undoing. For a documentary that has no dialogue at all, it’s use of visuals and music made the whole thing coherent throughout the movie. The film tackled so many different issues and went about it in these chapter like segments where each idea would be generated. These ideas almost always tackled the theme of humans interfering with the natural balance of the earth.

-I think this documentary was a masterclass in semiotics the subject that we Learnt about last year in class. There were so many chapters in this documentary which I had to look at in-depth and really think broadly about. The overlying narrative from the start, was about humans interfering with natural world; However I did not expect the whole thing to go on for one hour and 30 minutes with not a single use of dialogue. The way that the director used visual and audible signs to let the viewer understand his meanings was brilliant. The magnitude of work created in this project was overwhelming and so many different meanings to extract from every different thing. I felt like I was writing in my notebook every second trying to keep up with the deeper themes of the peice. I think the way the director took his time with the piece and slowly showed the change between the natural habitat and a technological, let the viewer soak up the different environments so when it changed you could easily tell the difference between the natural and the technological. For example the first 30 minutes was all natural environments of hills and skyscapes, it was only when humans came along, that you could start to see the unnatural lines and the weird curves in everything that we make. This is when I really realised how much we indented the human way of life onto the surface of the earth.

-In my opinion the piece has ages very well. I couldn’t discern what year the film was shot and the broader message still hits home in our modern day. Even now with all the environmentally friendly and efficient structures humanity is putting into place to stop climate change, we are still a world away from the balance we should have with our technological emissions. One thing that intrigued me halfway through the film, was the directors choice of shooting close-up videos of ordinary peoples faces. With what we can see with the fashion of the people being shot, it looked to be around the 60s and 70s. At this point in time It shows that we were still not comfortable with technology modern technology, with people looking very unnerved when the camera spotlighted them. This sequence was shot again however but this time it looked to be more the 90s-00s. The shots parrelleled the previous chapter however this time people didn’t even seem to notice being filmed and if they did, they didn’t care. I think this shows how complacent we have become with the course our technology follows and that we are becoming more and more numb to the alien effect it used to have on us.

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joshuamwaluseke · 4 years

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Research and Enquiry: Annotated bibliography #1 to #10

1. In the book ‘3D Animation Essentials’ Written by Andy Beane, the author explains a lot about the different techniques that 3D artists and animators could be and should be using whilst thinking about creating their narrative pieces. In one chapter, he said “3D Animation has borrowed concepts from many other fields. You must be willing to study these principles from other disciplines to become a well-rounded 3D artist” (Beane, 2012). The author is letting the reader know that there is much more to 3D Animation than just creating characters and making them move. He makes us understand that the concepts that animation has have been borrowed from different mediums such as film or opera in terms of ambience and editing. I think this is an interesting read for me as it pertains to my practice.

Beane, A (2012. 3D Animation Essentials. Indiana: John Wiley & Sons Inc. p35

2. In the Book ‘Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practices’, the authors are talking about how animation comes across to the consumers, the different ways that animation can communicate with the viewers. In the book, it says “Animations thinks especially hard about movement, time and, unsurprisingly, animation: what motivates something to move” (Smith, 2013). Here the authors are trying to explain the different elements that make up animation. I think this is important especially in my field of work because the exaggerated movement are what separates animation from things such as film. It is important to note this as an animator because the movement of a character normally depicts a lot of things such as its mood and so on.

Smith, V (2013). Experimental and Expanded Animation: New Perspectives and Practices. Switzerland: Springer International. p103.

3. In the book ‘Animation: From Concepts and Production’, the author talks about the skills an animator must have to properly tell a story that has a flow to it. The book states ‘A character animator, for example, must understand the principles of film editing in order to provide continuity between scenes’ (Rall, 2017) This could be linked back to my first annotated bibliography on how animation pulls concepts from different mediums. In this section, the author is stating that animators somewhat must take on the role of a director when it comes to editing shots and scenes, which I do agree with. I have had to edit my animations a certain way depending on how I want the viewers to feel. I think this is a very interesting read not only for 3D animation but also for 2D Animation.

Rall, H (2018) Animation: From concepts and Production, USA, CRC Press, p1.

4. In the book ‘Designing Interface Animation: Improving the User Experience Through Animation’, the author is talking about the way in which animation communicates with the audience. He mentions that when the audience are watching an animation, they look for the reasons in which things move, whether it’s the surface they are on or a force moving them, this is the question that they ask. He states “Knowing that your animations will be interpreted through one or both of those lenses – applying the rules of the physical world or as characters – creates a solid case for consciously designing what you want your animations to say” (Head, 2016). We can see that the author is stressing the point of how movement affects the way in which the audience understands your animation. This would be very interesting to consider especially within 3D animation as the movement can tend to be exaggerated or cartoonish.

Head, V (2016). Designing Interface Animation: Improving the User Experience Through Animation. New York: Rosenfeld Media, LLC. p7.

5. In the book ‘Global Animation Theory: International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb’, The author is talking about realism in animation. He claims that animation, unlike other mediums of digital media, is a medium that purposely moves away from realism. He says “In Understanding Animation (1998) Paul wells asserts that in contrast to all Disney’s attempts at realism, animation is a medium that inherently resists realism, and instead creates several styles that are about realism” (Hosseini-Shakib, 2018). He references another author and speaks to how Disney’s attempts at realism through animation is exactly what animation is not about. They state that animation creates different kinds of realism through its own style. This is quite interesting to me because the relationship between realism and animation is quite strange. Some animations stray far from it and some animations try to replicate realism. This book would be useful when creating animations in the future.

Hosseini-Shakib, F (2018). Global Animation Theory: International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb. USA: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p276.

6. In the book ‘The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation’, the author is talking about how animation acts as a machine with many different layers that determine what animation can do. He mentions how this Is important to note about animation. He says “ I have insisted on the importance of looking at animation as a machine, specifically a multiplanar machine, which determines or limits what animation is and what it can do” (Lamarre, 2013). The author then goes on to question whether the animation creates the author or the author creates the animation. This text would be quite useful for me to use as understanding the limits of animation and pushing them as far as possible is something that many creators strive to do and is very essential to my practice.

Lamarre, T (2013). The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. USA: University of Minnesota. p56.

7. In this book ‘Animation – Process, Cognition and Actuality’, The author is speaking about how animation should be put in its own category and level, apart from traditional film because of its unique production processes. The author then also goes onto talk about animate vision, a theory that was introduced by Dana Ballard, a professor of computer science at the University of Texas. I think this book would prove interesting to read because when it comes to narrative in animation, knowing about different animation theories would be helpful and important. According to the book “Animate vision, a theory first proposed by Dana Balllard, calls for a consideration and linking of how we look at things, with our cognition of those things” (Torre, 2017). This is a theory I want to explore further and understand more.

Torre, D (2017). Animation – Process, Cognition and Actuality. USA: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p106-108.

8. In the book ‘The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation’, the author is talking about how animation within games and within film animation aim to become so realistic. This reaches a point where the animation starts to look weird and unnatural. In the book it states “In the Last chapter, I discussed how a lack of facial mimicry in a human-like character toward the user and other characters featured in the game or animation may evoke the uncanny due to a perception that the character is unable to understand and empathize with others” (Tinwell, 2014). This book would be interesting to read as I am primarily into 3D animation, and this is a place where the uncanny valley is witnessed very often. I think it would be useful when tackling realism within animation and in 3D.

Tinwell, A (2014). The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation. USA: CRC Press. p149.

9. In the book ‘Film Out of Bounds: Essays and Interviews on Non-Mainstream Cinema Worldwide’ The author is mentioning how animation is a medium that is predominantly targeted towards the family and children genre. He challenges this notions, adding that certain animations have infiltrated the market and made animation entertaining for other demographics as well. He says “It’s naïve to think that animation cannot be a source of adult entertainment. With shows like The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, Japanese Anime, Ardman Animation, and the films of Hayao Miyazaki, animation has infiltrated adult pop culture” (Edwards 2018). This book would be interesting because as Edwards stated, animation does not need to be exclusively for children. I have the choice of making an animation for any demographic and there is a possibility it will still be successful.

Edwards, M (2018). Film Out of Bounds: Essays and Interviews on Non-Mainstream Cinema Worldwide. USA: McFarland & Company. p74-76.

10. In the book ‘Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture’, the author begins to talk about animations aesthetic storytelling and how that sets it apart from other mediums. He states “The aesthetic storytelling of animated films becomes a conventional mode for contemplating the unconventional” (Herhuth, 2017). Here the author is describing animations aesthetic storytelling as a normal way of exploring stories or animations that may not be normal. For me, this book would be important to read in terms of narrative. It offers another view on how stories are told in animation and what make the storytelling process so different to other mediums such as film or cinema. It shows how animation can have a resounding impact on audience by utilizing aesthetic storytelling.

Herhuth, E (2017). Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture. USA: University of California Press. p25.

#annotatedbibliographyjoshuamwaluseke

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ygobigbang-archive · 7 years

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Artists needed!

Hi all! We are still looking for artists for the following fics, please take a look and let us know if you’d like to help out either here or on the dreamwidth post :D

We have 2 1 Duel Monsters, 1 GX, 4 ARC-V and 1 Zexal/ARC-V crossover

We’d like art to be ready for the 21st August but let us know if you’d need longer!

DM3 Pairings: Some slight Téa/Atem, but they’ve just met. Characters: Atem, Téa, and fem!Seto Content warnings: None! Summary: In a Weird Science AU, Téa and Seto have just accidentally created Atem. He has just shown up in Seto’s bedroom after their experiment goes hopelessly wrong (or right)? Téa is thrilled at their creation, but Seto just wants to run out of the room. 2 ART

GX1 Pairings: None Characters: Rei, Asuka, Judai, Shou. Mentions of others Warnings: This is a zombie apocalypse AU, so triggers apply. Blood, some gore, death, zombie cannibalism, mental trauma, suicidal thoughts, an OC suicide. Summary: AU.“Because that’s one more life still intact. That’s one more human alive. That’s a miracle. There’s God knows how many corpses to bury… but you’re alive, Rei. And I’m so glad you’re alive.” Of everything lost, family found, and a terrible secret at the end of the world. ART

ARCV1 Pairings: none were intended, but it could be Yuya/Yuzu if you want it to be. Very, VERY minor background Crow/Shinji. Characters: Yuya Sakaki, Yuzu Hiragi, Crow Hogan, Rin, Selena, Ruri Kurosaki, Jean-Michel Roger, Edo Phoenix, Sora Shiunin, Reiji Akaba, Zarc, Ray Akaba; those are the main ones, but pretty much the entire cast and a handful of other series characters makes at least a cameo Content warnings: graphic depictions of violence, blood and some graphic gore, several brief scenes of torture, child abuse (not sexual), major character death Summary: In the time of legends, the demon and the goddess warred with each other over the fate of humanity, until both disappeared. Humanity will not let them go so easily, however, and in the realm of Zarkania, the priests have finally found their reincarnated demon. Yuya has spent five years imprisoned in the temple, manipulated into appearing as the feared Demon Emperor while he struggles with horrible episodes of violence every new moon when his demon half asserts himself. When he learns of a legend that the goddess will choose a champion to defeat the demon once again, he escapes on a journey to find her—so that she can kill him.“ ART

ARCV3 Pairings: crewshipping (Shingo/Ootamo/Yamabe/Kakimoto), implied redlightshipping (Reiji/Shingo), nascent dartshipping (Yuuya/Shingo), suggestions of towershipping (Shingo/Yuzu)/chaperoneshipping (Gongenzaka/Shingo) Characters: Sawatari Shingo, Ootomo, Yamabe, Kakimoto, Akaba Reiji, Sakaki Yuuya, Hiiragi Yuzu, Gongenzaka Noboru, Supreme King Z-ARC (kind of) Content warnings: depictions of severe self-esteem issues, a couple very brief allusions to transphobia, implied sexual coercion, implied use of sex as self harm Summary: Starts pre-series and goes through canon. Ootomo realizes he loves his best friend Sawatari Shingo, but seeing how Sakaki Yuuya’s managing to change Shingo for the better makes him feel as though he has to decide between confession and self-sacrifice. don’t worry, it’s a happy ending. Notes for artists (if i may include this): Mostly interior scenes (abandoned warehouse, school building, bedroom, etc) with a few outdoor scenes in a park or dueling stadium or city street. Multiple scenes taking place in the afternoon/evening. Some comedic moments but overall an intimate atmosphere ART ARCV4 Pairings: Gen! Characters: Ruri, Dennis, Yuuto, Shun, Sayaka, Gloria and Grace, Yuuri, Reiji, Leo + spoiler characters Content warnings: some brief descriptions of blood/body horror Summary: Fantasy AU. In a world free from the evils of the night, a land where the sun does not set, the scholars of Academia rule in all but name the territories that they have conquered. Spurred by a cryptic prophecy, the Rebels of Heart rise up against enemies that can control the threads of fate themselves by collecting the four “blessings” of the gods scattered in the spaces between the heavens and the earth. But unbeknownst to them, there’s a traitor waiting in their midst, tasked with delivering the final blow- and it doesn’t matter that he might have started to care. 2 ART ARCV5 Pairings: Rin/Yuri, Rin/Yugo Characters: Rin, Yuri, Yugo Content warnings: Mild to moderate depictions of violence, noncon touching, mentions of rape, destructive relationships, co-dependence, grief/mourning Summary: Canon divergence AU where Yuri defeats Yugo in time to interrupt the Leo vs. Reiji & Yuya duel. When faced with the sight of Rin trapped, one feeling consumes his being: To get her away from Leo, no matter the cost. Faced with being kidnapped again, Rin searches for a way to escape from Yuri, find Yugo, and go back to Synchro. However both soon learn that there are forces in play outside either of their control. ART

#yugioh #gx #arcv #ygo big bang #ygobb #ygobb 2017

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