#which luckily I had some background context for

[clonerightsagenda]

augerer said: most of my friends main critique of this is how you lose the time war was along the lines of “too much vibes, not enough substance” so that sounds good to me

Rakesfall is still definitely vibes-heavy (I read his debut The Saint of Bright Doors to compare and it's a more straightforward narrative) but Rakesfall directly takes on colonialism, capitalism, and ecological collapse in our world and potential future while Time War mostly gestures at it iirc. I think Time War is all in a nameless sci fi/fantasy world whereas Rakesfall sets a chunk of the story during the Sri Lankan civil war.

#augerer #which luckily I had some background context for #I think I would've gotten even more out of the book if I had more familiarity with South Asian philosophies #replies #this is not time war hate I enjoy that book also! just trying to illustrate their differences

[keystonepublishing]

The Saga of Hermitcraft on r/Place (1 April 2022 - 4 April 2022)

On the 1st of April 2022, Reddit unveiled a white blank canvas where every user had the ability to place one colored pixel in every 5 minutes. At its height, about 4 million people participated in one of the biggest internet collaborations ever made. The ripple effects reverberated into news reports as far away as Turkey, and the final canvas represents a snapshot of the multiple communities, events, memes, and what was popular around the world at that time.

This is a documentation of the Hermitcraft mural on r/place 2022.

aka.

Remember what I said about my latest ficbind being a distraction? This is what I wanted to be distracted from.

After Reddit's API fiasco of this year and the subsequent controversial event that was r/place 2023, I decided to save as much documentation about the 2022 event as I could. Luckily, I remember how there are already a series of posts by @riacte who documented the progress of the Hermitcraft mural throughout the whole event, from beginning to end. Her blogposts form the bulk of this book (like, 95%!) and I cannot thank her enough for preserving the happenings of the block men mural.

With that said, I quickly realized that someone who's not a Hermitcraft fan - or me if I'm older - might not get the gist of who's who on the mural. The solution? Make several pages dedicated to just listing who's who on the murals! Because of the sheer number of heads, the mural was divided into several pieces for easier labeling. As a bonus, I also threw in another mural nearby which was connected enough to the Hermitcraft community.

For consistency's sake and preserving focus, I decided to not label the peeps from Dream SMP or the MCC secondary mural. Wrangling Microsoft Word to create an infographic was hard enough, let alone 3! If I inadvertently left out a few bits of extra context from this decision, mea culpa.

When it came to typesetting the entire text block, I decided to make some consistent rules. Titles denoting each day or stage of the mural are on their own pages. New sections are titled using the Bahnschrift font and colored blue, while the first paragraph has their beginning lines look Minecraft-coded and topped with a drop cap (aka. those super-large alphabets).

The names of Hermitcraft and Minecraft players in general are bolded when they first appear in the text. Afterwards, they are bolded if they are contextually important to what's being said.

Extra context would be placed in the footnotes section at the bottom of the page. This is also where I dump some background information that would be invaluable for any readers who aren't Minecraft fans, which is why the SpaceX page looked like... uh, that.

My image policy is to go with the flow; I used as many images from riacte's posts as possible, but I also added-in some of my own if more context is needed. Placing them to look smooth with the text was harder - some are small enough to not cause any problems, others are large enough to fill entire pages without any problems, but a few like the Dream SMP mural (hey there! I managed to put you in!) are too wonky to fit perfectly without leaving no empty spaces.

So in that mural's case, I placed them to the side and let the contextual text flow around it. This principle was also used for the Dota2 / Love Live images and in a few other places throughout the book. The biggest case of this are the few images that are just too wide.

Like this one.

Making double-page spreads is not the easiest thing to do in Microsoft Word, and there are a few r/place images that are too wide to fit perfectly in a single page. Confining them to one page would also mean losing all their details, so making them a double-page spread was necessary.

Didn't make it easy though, especially when there are paragraphs of text and other images that needed to be shuffled around. Mess up the double-page images, and they won't meet in the middle. Mess up the text and other pics? There goes the layout and overall flow!

In the end, making this book took a lot longer than I expected, but I am still grateful to have made this as I have now read through many posts from Tumblr, Reddit, and even Youtube - people expressing joy that they have collectively made something together. I can only hope I have made some justice to them by compiling their work and (even if a small sliver) preserving their testaments.

May this r/place be remembered.

#r/place #rplace #Hermitcraft #reddit #MCYT #rplace 2022 #r/place 2022 #bookbinding #fanbinding #documentation #my bookbinds #hermitblr

[myunghology]

— ✦ i see us, together, celebrating our anniversary.

featuring tsukasa suou x gn! reader

warnings none!!

genre + context fluff, reader finally answering tsukasa after he courted them for over a year!?! 😱 holy moly — written in 2nd pov!

a/n i kinda teared up making this. why can't someone treat me like how tsukasa suou treats reader. Head in hands

Almost everyone knew. No— probably everyone knew at this point that Tsukasa Suou was courting you. No one could ever miss the sweet acts he does for you everyday in school. Hell, maybe even outside of school if you will.

Tsukasa Suou; Your suitor who asked your parents personally if he could court you, to which he had 15 emotional breakdowns since he was too nervous, since if they don't allow him.. All of his plans to woo you will all be trampled down on. Luckily enough for him, your parents allowed him, though there would be serious consequences if he ever did something bad to you!

When he picks you up for school everyday— technically not him but his driver. While you say that it's too embarrassing, sulking around while Tsukasa finds an excuse for him to be the first one to see your pretty face in the morning.

And in addition to that; he never let's you sit alone at the back seat. When you try to open the door he reaches out to it and slams it shut back again before heading out in a hurry to open the door for you.

Whenever you two go out or are possibly in the same class, actually, no matter where you two are, he's always going to open the door first for you. He doesn't care if you want to open that door first because you want to be 'independent', he's already removing your hand from the door handle to open it first!

Whenever he proposes to go out somewhere nice, he always says, "Give me that, I'll take a picture of you." whenever you try to take a picture of yourself. It would be such a waste if you can't even see the beautiful background behind you in a picture, right?

Even if you don't ask, he already has multiple pictures of you on his phone whilst you sulk once again that you look bad in some of those pictures, asking him to delete them. Meanwhile he laughs, but complies. Though he is a bit sad that you say that about yourself! You always look gorgeous to him.

Tsukasa's wallpaper being the two of you at an aquarium pointing out sea animals, this picture could've never happened if he wasn't taking a picture of you himself, but then some sweet old couple offered to take this picture of you both since young love is so, so adorable.

Putting your foot on top of his knee because he noticed that your shoes were untied, kneeling down just to fix your shoe laces when you didn't even notice yourself that they were even untied in the first place.

Your other classmates have seen him carrying your heavy stuff for school projects to the classroom; even if you two aren't in the same class. Everytime he insists, you automatically turn him down saying that you can carry it yourself. Can you really, though?

He still ends up bringing them no matter how much you tell him that you don't mind bringing them yourself and that him picking you up and dropping you off at your house are already good enough and that he doesn't have to do anything more.

But even so, he probably doesn't care. It's his duty as a knight— specifically your knight to always be by your side to help you. Even when you're not together— he still checks up on you through texts or calls.

He is your suitor, but it is an unsaid rule that you both won't say 'I love you' to each other once you start dating. Making it specifically clear to everyone that he isn't your boyfriend, just incase it makes you uncomfortable.

Buying you expensive gifts, using his money and only his. Reassuring you that it's nothing while you scold him to stop spending so much money on you. "If it makes you happy.. Then I'd be happy to spend more on gifts just for you." "I appreciate it.. But it doesn't make me happy that you're spending so much money on me!"

Learning a love song in your native language just to make you happy, Sending a video of him singing it since he's too ashamed to do it in front of you; Bonus points because he calls you romantic pet names in your native language, whilst you laugh at him in a good way because he way he's trying just warms your heart by itself. "Stop laughing!"

And to which, this day finally comes.

It's been 1 year and 4 months ever since Tsukasa started courting you.

You and Tsukasa were sitting in a cute little gazebo together, the soft wind blowing through your hair as you rest your head on his shoulder, putting your phone right in front of you to record, which doesn't even confuse the male anymore— since he knew that you liked recording you two together, a small sense of intimacy between you two.

"Kasa?" You call out his nickname whilst he hums as a response. "I bought us both something for shits and giggles," You say, laughing, bringing out two fortune cookies, placing one in front of him.

He pouts playfully, but nods, gently cracking it open.

The words, 'Kasa, I love you.' perfectly written on the small slip of paper between his fingers as his eyes widen slowly, his heartbeat speeding up from the written words as he makes an attempt to stop the tears from trying to come out of his eyes.

A small and short laugh comes out of your lips as he finally turns his head to look at you, tearing his gaze away from the slip of paper that he set aside on the table, he laughs back in response to yours, with his glossy eyes and his voice that was now shaking—

"Is this a joke?" He asks in a soft voice, but it's still clearly full of love.

You shake your head, and once you do, not even a second is wasted once he pulls you into a hug; you could practically feel his heartbeat at this point. caressing your hair softly, pulling away after sometime.

He covers his mouth with the palm of his hand, not being able to stop his tears anymore from streaming down his face, you instinctively wipe his tears away with your thumb, Tsukasa's hand making it stay put so he could lay his head on the palm of your hands.

Tsukasa notices your phone recording, he goes near the camera, happily announcing; "they said yes," he sobs out once again, pulling you into another tight hug, but this time, one hand is on your head while you bury it in his neck, his other hand on your waist, his body trembling oh so slightly.

He kisses your head with nothing but pure intentions, a gentle breeze stirring your hair as Tsukasa holds you in his arms.

This causes you to smile, eventually giggling right after. "Stop laughing, I love you so much. You're worth the wait. I will never get tired of pursuing you." This time, he sulks, but he ends up laughing with you.

'Tsukasa Suou, on this day, next year.. i see us, together, celebrating our anniversary.'

©myunghology. — me and who guys. Me and wh-

#jian’s works! #ensemble stars #ensemble stars x reader #ensemble stars headcanons #enstars x reader #enstars #tsukasa suou #tsukasa suou x reader #GUYS PLEASE #ME AND WHO #why isn't tsukasa suou in my life

[archivalofsins]

The Calico Cat

Also known as let's examine the colors of Cat~

I did not know what I was getting into when I started this post. Luckily, as usual @apatchworkstar / @sinfulequity was around to help me out. Pointing out a few things to me while proofreading this post that strengthened some points.

So, get ready because this is a dozy! From color analysis to music history and theory we're opening up this box and seeing what this Schrodinger Cat is really like.

Starting off with black and white.

Now black and white are pivotal colors within the Cat mv. I believe white represents the act Kazui puts up and black his true self. This is supported through various imagery within Cat these being some of the most pivotal,

These scenes highlight the stark contrast between the lies and truth of this situation using these two colors to emphasize that point. Victim and Perpetrator even appearing in smaller black font within the large colorful versions of the words over their faces.

This is why I believe when the background is white Kazui is acting. Something that gives a bit more context to these scenes,

As the color will show us which is the truth, and which is the lie. The truth being Kazui just got greedy and in fact did not wish to simply ask so it was out in the open. We'll be going into the coloring on the words later since that's also something of note.

So, I bet you're wondering what blue is right? Like shouldn't the blue represent Kazui as well. Heh, heh... Now why would Kazui associate himself with his prisoner uniform color? I think some of you may be getting what I'm putting down. The blue in Cat represents the audience's interpretation of Kazui. This is why Blue was never a prominent color in Half but is on full display here.

The impact Kazui's verdict has had on him is the most subtle out of all the prisoners. To the point Jackalope can't even tell us how he's changed during the second trial commencement notice.

However, just because something cannot be observed doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Cat uses subtle coloring tricks to allude to how Kazui has changed as a result of his verdict.

Coming out the gate with a myriad of familiar colors.

Kazui's signature prison blue and the green of the apple associated with him. The red light that subtly becomes more prominent throughout the video before being put on full display at the climax and an orangish yellow light that we'll go into more later.

For the time being it's not important, don't worry about it.

Right now, we'll be focusing on Blue, Green, and Red regarding this scene. At points, these colors overlap with each other on top of the lyrics. I believe this is meant to highlight how in sync these two factors are with one another.

Under this framing the way green overshadows blue over the lyrics "I just wanted" but not fully covering it would mean that the audience was close to figuring out what he did or in this case wanted but were just a little off at the same time.

Like we knew he wanted something but what we ultimately landed on thinking he wanted was a little off the mark.

The blue and red overlapping like a Venn Diagram between the lyrics "To touch" and "To caress" shows us that once again the audience and what Kazui's actual sin is are out of sync. The truth landing somewhere in the middle of the two.

Cat goes on with these subtle color cues perfectly illustrating which color represents what in the next few scenes,

Blue highlighting, "Innocent, isn't that right?" the verdict the audience gave to Kazui last trial. As subtle darker red bleeds into to the line going over, "Oh, shove that!"

The kicker before all this the audience is subtly shown the red that will appear in the end in this image,

The color representing his sin cutting through all his facades and lies while pointing straight towards the end.

So, we now know what the blue and red spotlights represent now let's apply this logic to the words here.

The words in black and white with blue or red highlights to me visualize the divide between the truth and lies growing thinner. Both statements that are presented this way being half right and half wrong. All the while the audience's perception of his sin and how Kazui sees it are battling it out visually.

As he once again reiterates the audience is wrong about him ever cheating through stating, "I just wanted to ask".

While "So, it's out in the open." is all in blue.

I believe this is his response to hearing the audience and recognizing at least his sins have been viewed. Even if he states in his voice drama Milgram has yet to even touch on his sin that doesn't change the fact that it was put on full display. Again, just because something isn't observed at all or correctly doesn't mean it didn't happen.

It seems to me from all this and his voice drama that Kazui found some sense of relief from having his sin forgiven. So, much so that he's now getting greedy wanting us to know more and more about whatever terrible things he did and accept him for not only that but who he is.

Accept him for the way that he,

"I’ve confided in others. I’ve tried to be myself! I’ve tried to just be the way I was born!" x

Now let's get to the fun part, Yellow-

A good deal of people have recognized this as the sequence in which these events occurred. I mean it's written there all numbered and everything.

Star and I wound up discussing this rather quickly after the release of Cat through WhatsApp messages because I was bothering her to figure out what the French meant, lol.

However, I never imagined we'd be able to go this deep into these images on colors alone.

It's in these images that this yellow color appears the most. Along with having the most prominent use of red before the climax. But what exactly does this yellow represent? Well, we do see this color on someone else-

Sir, what a nice gold ring you have there. It would be a shame if your friend confessed something to you ultimately leading everyone down a path of mutual destruction. Luckily, there's nothing that implies that-

01- I realize the futility but I still can't help but dream.

"I'm so dumb. Why did I have to dream?"

"The curse of reuniting with you puts a dagger in my heart. I imagined that you saying, "See you" is the same as "It's over”. Only if your heart would change but that’s not possible."

"All these memories and you. Only if I could erase them."

"I’m sure nothing will change, and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names. So many things I wish I hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

02- Phew, oh wow I'm drunk.

"Er, so…… could you listen to what I say without laughing? I……"

03- Love (plus) Destiny=Crap Smash it, shatter it, bye-bye.

"Hinako, I love you more than anything." - "Loving Affection (minus) Love, it’s tacky, this two-way deceit."

04- Lie, until it gets better, follow the king of the masquerade.

"All this time till now has hurt me, the scales of my heart has decided to sway. If continuing to hide is called unhappiness, not even one word will get to you." - "All those things I wanna do that I can’t say out loud- I gotta keep it inside and act."

Hate to say it but who would want silver when you can go for gold-

This is why at the start of Cat we see this-

"Since, when have I ignored my feelings?" as red the color of Kazui's sin and this yellow overlap. Why he starts off dejectedly leaning into the cars steering wheel as this is sung,

"It’s better to be a let down, than to be let down yourself."

Kazui "They won't think I was serious when I confessed if I get into a relationship with someone else directly after I can still lie this away" Mukuhara everyone!

This is also why this color appears during the victim and perpetrator scene.

He's so happy to see his friend look at that genuine smile in comparison to-

In the first he is just so look, my friends here do you see them, they'll probably hang out with me again without feeling weird while the second one is just like- Oh yes, my marriage...that...regret my old friend when did you arrive no don't take your coat off, please leave- and you sat down.

Again, the expression work on cat should be talked about far more Kazui looks fucking dead inside up there.

There are even sparks of this color in his "Phew, oh wow I'm drunk. Hey, so what if I said I liked-liked you, what would you do?" moment. Something Star brought up was the fact that he's drinking Whiskey also alludes to this because whiskey is sometimes colloquially referred to as Liquid Gold,

The yellow light clearly being filtered through his glass and drink to get the effect we see here. All the while its color being dimmed even more by the black background.

I need to state for the record that I don't even go here-

I am not a firm believer in Kazui being gay, bi, pan etc. nor do I care about his sexuality personally. Well, okay I care about it a little just for the purpose of being able to say, "Cool sexuality, still murder though." Outside of rehashing old jokes I really couldn't care less because that's his personal business, it really has no bearing on how I view the murder and we speculate it doesn't have any real bearing on the murder itself at all anyhow.

Yet at the same time all this is just sitting right here- SO I MIGHT AS WELL BRING IT UP!

I started this post for a completely different reason, believe it or not. This was supposed to be a simple thing on colors. When I first brought this up to someone else blue represented the wife! The wife! However, then I looked over the evidence again and was like ha, ha- You stupid fuck that wasn't right, way to go dumbass, great way to embarrass yourself in front of whole ass other human being, gave him completely factually incorrect information right before bed. He has to sleep on that now. You're a shit person- then continued to type this like I guess when the morning comes, he'll know sorry bout that.

Me when it came to this, "I’m still guilty even if the morning comes."

All that to say I'm currently stuck falling down a rabbit hole of the messiest nonsense I've seen in several years. But let's get back on track. Because that's not all.

I wish it was all because I am very tired but no it's not.

Even though the colors in Cat allude to previous speculations being correct a good bit of it very cheekily implies all these things are not his actual sin and the audience is overlooking something integral.

The yellow lighting breaking across the blue and straight over Kazui's legs. It shining through the red lines and word can't. His sin and our perception of it rarely touching in the last image. Subtly implying it's much bigger than we're thinking, in some regards, yet smaller than we're implying in others. The font in all black indicating his true nature.

In a disorienting frenzy as the music just keeps going until-

As Kazui is smoking the black background that up until this point has alluded to the truth is tinged blue. Once again implying how the audience has to an extent realized something about his sin but from Kazui's expression the conclusion the audience has come to about the situation is so off it's funny to him.

This contrasts to Yuno who despite being Innocent shows a general disdain towards the audience for running with their preconceived notions and desired perception of her. More so emphasizing within Tear Drop that she's the one who decided to let all of us in and she wants us to stop getting carried away and saying things about her that she simply does not believe is the case and frankly did not ask for our opinions on.

"Don’t weigh me measure me against your morality Just shut it, will you? You know it all Feeling magnanimous? INNOCENT? I’m so not that Just shut it, will you? You know it all." - "I’m the one who chose, let you and you and you all in- Happy or sad? Why decide? Where’d you get your half-baked sense of justice So nauseating...so creepy...will you please disappear “Phew. Anyway!”."

Instead of doing this Kazui is more so going, "Ya, know- It's so, funny- How stupid you are." throughout all of Cat. Fully embodying the lyric in Undercover of,

"Even with accusations full of faults and mistakes- You will for sure, with a smile for sure be pleased and satisfied."

We also see red outlining Kazui's build visually putting his sin behind him. Yet, as Star brought to my attention again red isn't only representative of his sin specifically but his urges as well.

Or what he wishes to indulge in. Something, illustrated through these scenes

"Lick that sin and oppose punishment, until you can meet the king of the masquerade." - "INNOCENT, isn’t that right?"

Q.19 Do you want to be forgiven?

Kazui: I don’t know. If I’m being honest, I do kind of want my weakness to be pardoned.

Again, suggesting that the speculation, we put forth at the beginning of this post- "It seems to me from all this and his voice drama that Kazui found some sense of relief from having his sin forgiven. So, much so that he's now getting greedy wanting us to know more and more about whatever terrible things he did and accept him for not only that but who he is."

Is correct.

Now, let's flip that beat shall we~

However, before we can flip a beat, we need to understand how Cat works musically. All the cool cats are up on their Jazz but the best cats can Swing.

Cat has many colloquial meanings. So far the focus has primarily been on the meaning in Japanese, but the term has a history in Jazz as well-

It was also used back in the day to refer to a cool, unbothered sort of guy that one may have some difficulty pinning down emotionally.

I believe it would be helpful for people to look over all the links up there along with this information on playing in front of or behind a beat.

X

So, why is this important? Well, some may remember seeing this post. I am just realizing I fucked up. Because I didn't link to the part that I was referring to like I had intended which is fixed now but is also here for those interested.

At the point after that smoke break occurs Cat goes from playing behind beat to ahead of it then to on it once the guitar kicks back in. It does this in quick succession after making a noise that can be mistaken for a rewind or a let's take that back from the top cue as it flips the beat,

Putting the previous chorus out cold; similar to a live remix typically done within swing and jazz inspired forms of music. Something reminiscent of ragtime music one of the influences Jazz is rooted in. Props to Milgram really, I did not think I would get to gush over black music this much while discussing something from Japan, but they managed it.

All this combines to give Cat a very authentic Swing feel that pulls the audience in so hard one could be excused for thinking they'd just been dragged directly into a Jazz Bar-

A place where one can get drinks and listen to all sorts of jazz including its subgenres like swing. Though it could be a music lounge in general.

Q.14 Do you listen to music?

Kazui: I guess I do from time to time. It’s all super old music though, so I don’t think you’ll know it.

Back to Cat though for comparison sakes here's the first chorus at the beginning of Cat

From 0:43-1:04

Along with the flipped version I'm referring to specifically

From 2:24-2:32

Despite there being a rather consistent clapping in the instrumental of the song up until this point it's noticeably absent as a light and whimsical piano can be heard. In the mv this can be heard between 2:34-2:38. Highlighting the genuine longing nature of the line accompanying it,

"To be caressed by you, that would be perfection."

Right after the previous visuals showcasing Kazui's lie in full-

Not only highlighting the parts of the act or lie in big white font but going as far as to highlight them in the lyrics in French beneath these words.

Visually showing us that love being crap is a lie that Kazui may not only be telling others but himself because again,

"It’s better to be a let down, than to be let down yourself." - "It’s for the sake of true love, who wouldn’t lie for that?"

"If I were to make sure and suffer, I would rather be by your side. Laughing together, side by side, this distance in our relationship is misleading me, is this what happiness is?" - "I’m sure nothing will change and we’ll laugh together and call each other stupid names. So many things I wish I hadn't known, I'm just a coward."

"Love always wins and I always lose, and that's fine."

Then in Cat once the clapping begins again a new sound is introduced as well-

From 2:33-2:38

We can hear the sound of a wind-instrument being played subtly emphasizing the whimsical and playful nature of the,

"I wanted to be loved, just like a cat." lyric while tonally contrasting this visual,

As the instrumental part I'm referring to within the mv starts between 2:40-2:42.

This imagery is also telling. The background is red but the blood of the dove that splatters on the victim's face is black, the color used to represent the truth throughout this mv.

This is in stark contrast to when we see the apple hit the ground where red is the most prominent color with a few black stains within.

Let's wrap this up! There are more visual things I'd like to point out in Cat but those will be in different posts. Overall, the videos visuals allude to the audience being half right, half wrong. Their perception of Kazui and the truth of the matter barely touching at all.

Regardless of whether people are making him out to be worse than he is or better the truth lies somewhere in between those extremes. However since it's Kazui the half in half out guy both extremes could be true. Highlighting the lineup of top tier liars that make up the final half of the Milgram prisoners. Oh, look the elevators here-

And we're all going down, right?

#milgram #kazui mukuhara #mukuhara kazui

[bijouxcarys]

Queen's Hot Space Era: A Deep Dive

Masterlist

I’ve been thinking over this album and era more than usual lately, and decided that I’d write this up. Perhaps as a way to extricate all the Queen knowledge from my head, and the era in question takes up quite a lot of RAM.

The Hot Space album, and era, is very controversial and to this day garners a polarising set of opinions amongst fans and critics alike. So I just thought what the hell, let’s let everyone know what the hell was going on with Queen in the early 80s.

The Hot Space album was the 10th studio album by Queen and was released on the 21st May 1982. It had elements of disco, funk, R&B, dance, and pop, which was very different to what Queen had been doing throughout previous albums. The dance elements of this album was supposedly inspired by the success of Another One Bites The Dust, released in 1980.

Another One Bites The Dust was extremely successful in the US and the UK, the two largest marketing countries in the Western world, at least at the time—and Queen aimed to prolong that success.

The band started recording for Hot Space in June of 1981, and spent a gruelling 10 months on the project before wrapping up the production element in March of 1982. Upon its release, fans and critics found it disappointing. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said “the band that once proudly proclaimed not to use synthesisers on their albums now dramatically reversed course, dedicating the entire first side of the album to robotic, new wave dance pop, all driven by drum machines and coloured by keyboards with Brian May’s guitar coming in as flavour only on occasion.”

The fourth track on Hot Space, Body Language, has been dubbed the worst song in Queen’s discography by fans, and the whole album received no more than a 3-star rating overall.

Rolling Stone gave them a 3-star, whilst the Encyclopedia of Popular Music gave a 1-star… Yikes.

Hot Space is one of the more obscure Queen albums to those who are not currently, or have ever been, active within the fandom. So we’re going to break it down a little bit, and let’s just talk about the background and context of what the hell was going on with them.

So in 1981, Queen recorded Under Pressure with David Bowie, and it’s still considered one of Queen’s staple and most popular songs. It was recorded in Montreux, and was a completely separate project to Hot Space. The band had met up with Bowie and jammed together for a while, just to see if they could come up with something to lay down and master. Of course, as most people know, bassist John Deacon came up with the iconic Under Pressure bass riff, just before they all went out to get some pizza. And by the time they’d returned to the studio, he’d forgotten it! But luckily drummer Roger Taylor remembered it.

Now, this was the first time Queen weren’t working alone; they were used to working only with their producers, never having had anyone else’s input. The two artists merged as one for the song and it pointed in the direction of a potential new road for Queen—it was looking like an exciting one.

But what went wrong during the recording of Hot Space?

Brian May recalls that there was a total change of life for all of them. They travelled to Munich and according to Brian, that’s when things started to go downhill.

Let’s talk a little bit about the studio in which they recorded the album in Munich. It was situated in the basement of a hotel, and it was called Musicland Studios. It closed in the 90s due to some road issues, so it’s no longer open. But Brian remembers this place being grim and depressing.

The band’s mental health started to deteriorate after learning some unsettling details about the place. In Brian’s words:

“A lot of people used to jump off the top of the building and kill themselves off that particular building. We didn’t know that until we got there.”

The urge to finish recording grew, and they spent months at the hotel.

The aim was to create an album that focused more on the dance elements of music due to the success of Another One Bites The Dust, as I mentioned before. They seemed to be in luck, as Freddie Mercury’s entourage at the time was concentrated with dance influences in the form of Paul Prenter.

Now, who was Paul Prenter, you ask? If you’ve seen the film, you’ll kind of already know, but here’s a bit more of an in-depth look at him.

Paul Prenter was Freddie Mercury’s personal manager from 1977 to 1986. Despite their professional relationship, the two also engaged in intimate relations, and Prenter had a huge influence over Freddie’s life during the time he worked for him. He held partial responsibility for Freddie’s excessive involvement in drugs, alcohol, and his growing promiscuity. 

Freddie was known to have fired Prenter in 1986, and shortly after it was plastered all over the news. It turns out Paul Prenter had sold personal stories to the press about Freddie… What a dick.

After receiving money from multiple press outlets, he moved back to his hometown of Belfast and spent it all—smart. He then asked Freddie for more money! After all that, he went back and asked him for money! But it’s okay, he did succumb to complications from AIDS a few months before Freddie. So… Freddie got the last laugh, it seemed.

You’re probably wondering what Paul Prenter had to do with Hot Space. After all, he wasn’t part of the band, right?

Well, Freddie’s life was ruled by the New York-inspired gay lifestyle of the 80s, particularly engaging in extreme partying and extreme promiscuity. And at the time, Freddie had suggested to the band that the music on their new album should sound like that of which they’d play in a gay bar, but those words had initially come from Paul Prenter.

It’s said that Prenter despised guitars and relentlessly referred to Brian May as old-fashioned. Roger Taylor recalled that Prenter was a “very bad influence” on the band:

“He was a very, very bad influence upon Freddie, and hence on the band. He very much wanted our music to sound like you just walked in a gay club, and I didn’t.”

The strain and tension became inevitable with the four personalities—and we all know that John, Freddie, Brian, and Roger have massive personalities. Whilst they had always experienced bickering, as most bands do, they now with the added tension, the production of the album isn’t going to go as smoothly.

“Arguments would start off as creative, but slowly became personal.”

Brian recalls that less and less time was spent in the studio and more time was spent arguing.

To put it into perspective about what life was like for the 10 months they spent recording Hot Space in Munich…A regular day recording this album went a little bit like the following:

The entourage recall waking up at 3am, working for hours, having dinner, and then roadies would mix up cocktails and other things would pursue. The band got mixed up in cocaine and various other drugs. Random women, and relentless drinking, and as any sane person will tell you, that is not a good thing.

Roger described it as an exhausting cycle day after day. Imagine doing that for 9 whole months.

Brian remembers them getting into “deep trouble emotionally” in Munich, which possibly explains why their mental states deteriorated.

Now, the Hot Space era didn’t just end when the album came out. Obviously, when an album comes out, you have to do interviews to promote your album and after months and months of bad influences and arguments, the band’s relationship had kind of broken down. Things continued in quite a tense fashion. 

In fact, Freddie was left very unhappy and depressed after Hot Space wrapped up—it lasted a while, and he was completely immersed in places and habits that remained detrimental to his fate. Freddie became passive during interviews and defensive on certain questions concerning anything but current projects.

His attitude during the 1982 press conference in Europe was already standoffish and it was extremely obvious that he didn’t want to be there. The body language of the others, especially Brian, speaks volumes. The mood is low and they all seem exhausted.

Another nationwide interview the band gave in promotion for the album presented the group separated; Freddie was notably disinterested as the others spoke. There was even a moment where Freddie responds to the interviewer’s question with “let’s break up tomorrow” as a joke. But, watching it, you can’t help but feel there’s some truth to his words. Nobody laughed, even Roger looked uncomfortable by it!

One of the more well-known interviews from this era was with Brian and Roger, which displayed multiple moments of awkwardness with them both trying to make jokes and seem like they’re happy with what they’d produced, making up amateur excuses as to why they created something with a different sound. In my opinion, they just didn’t seem very happy. Do we even need to mention the “shut up” from Roger, and then the succeeding comment from Brian about Mack having the best drum sound?

Then, we have the iconic 1984 Freddie interview, where he left viewers stunned with his answers:

“I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you,” “I’m not an artist, I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.”

The long-term effects of what happened behind the scenes of Hot Space were everlasting and turned the group into four completely different people than they were prior to 1982. 

As I’ve already mentioned, Hot Space wasn’t received well upon its release, and there are still very strong opinions about it today. Brian stated in 2014 that it isn’t the band’s worst album, but the timing of its release was just wrong. As time goes on, more people begin to accept the Hot Space album as just another reason why Queen is one of the most versatile groups of all time, with them branching out into very different styles to what they’d done earlier in their career, like Sheer Heart Attack, News Of The World, etc…

80s culture looked down upon disco and funk, so reception for Hot Space was bound to be less than amazing. However, today, all styles of music are simultaneously celebrated, and people enjoy the album more now than they did 40 years ago.

So in conclusion, recording Hot Space was a difficult period for Queen. It’s horrible to think about your idols going through the kind of thing they did in the early-mid 80s, influenced by not very nice people. But focusing on the album itself, it’s truly not a bad album at all. Granted, the timing of the release wasn’t the best for Queen, but it holds up as a fan favourite today.

If you haven’t heard any of the songs from Hot Space, besides Under Pressure, I highly recommend you check it out. It’s very different to what Queen usually did and I think it’s worth a listen.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. Let me know if you liked this little… post, whatever the hell it is, and if I should do more posts like this. I enjoy throwing all my useless knowledge onto a page lol.

#80s #1982 #hot space #queen #queen band #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #roger taylor #music #album #80s music #album review #album recommendation #deep dive #classic rock #music history #music deep dive #queen deep dive #biography #article #music article

[skitterhop]

how i did the shadows in MAGIC SHOW

I thought it might be fun to write a little breakdown of how I made the shadows in my animation!

so a little bit of context about magic show: i made this animation very quickly! it was a birthday gift for @xxacidnekoxx, and i didn't have much time to make it. in total i worked on it for about 2 weeks. (unfortunately i didnt finish it in time for his birthday, but i did at least get it watchable from start to finish in time)

there wasn't an animatic stage, and i drew all of the final frames as i went. i didn't even know it was going to have shadows at all until I finished coloring it and realized the whole thing looked a lot more flat than i had anticipated.

oops!

luckily, getting the animation from this to its shaded state only took a few hours.

so let's break it all down!

Part One: Some Basics

it's worth noting that the animation software I used for this is toon boom harmony. a lot of what i'll be talking about is harmony specific, although you could certainly apply similar techniques in other programs.

Masking

the idea is simple. you have three images. the first two images are the same image, but with different palettes. the third image, known as the mask, is grayscale, and defines which areas use which palette.

when combined, the black areas use the first palette, and the white areas use the second palette. grey areas mix between the two.

in harmony this is easily accomplished with just a few nodes.

the unlit background is layered on the bottom. the lit version is masked by the cutter, and layered on top of the unlit background.

this kind of setup will likely work for most cases. however...

by default, cutter nodes will only use the alpha channel of whatever is plugged into the matte to determine which areas to mask, ignoring the actual brightness values of our mask.

this causes some issues for us! our lighting has layers. we want our spotlight to make the background lighter, and we want our characters to cast shadows on top of the spotlight.

luckily, we can force harmony to use the matte input's brightness values to determine the mask instead by inserting a greyscale node before the cutter and ticking the "matte output" box.

(btw, if you need a layer or matte to become a solid color, you can plug it into a Matte Blur node and pick which color you want there. very handy in combination with the greyscale node's matte output!)

Color Overrides

the easiest way to make alternate palettes in toon boom is to right click on the palette in your palettes list, and click "Clone..."

this makes a copy of your palette where all of the colors are linked to their respective counterparts in the original palette.

with cloned palettes, harmony uses whatever palette is highest in the list (or whatever palette is currently selected) to determine which version of the palette it uses in the scene. you can override any layer's palette priorities by plugging it into a Colour Override node and adding the new palette you want as a whole palette override.

Apply Peg Transformations

the Apply Peg Transformation node is simple. normally peg transformations occur before the drawing node. this means every instance of the drawing will share the same transformations. but this node lets you apply them after the drawing node.

this allows you to insert multiple instances of your drawing, each with unique transformations!

perfect for our shadows!

that's the basic gist of it! combining these elements gets you most of the way there.

Part Two: Getting The Rest Of The Way There

unfortunately, our table looks like it is floating at the moment.

this technique is very efficient, but the results are far from perfect.

shadows are what happen when an object blocks light from hitting another object. generally these objects are "three dimensional" and have "volume", which, in combination with the position and angle of the light source, changes the shape of the shadows they project.

the truth is that reusing flattened 2d artwork of characters to create shadows can only get you so far. the effect looks better when the light source is coming from a similar position and angle to the camera, but looks worse when the difference is greater.

in our case, the light source is close enough to look convincing on the curtains, but the shadow doesn't line up with the table's feet on the floor, absolutely shattering the illusion.

so how do we fix this?

Color Overrides Again

the Colour Override node also lets you non-destructively remove specified colors from a layer.

here i've "deleted" the table's shadow by using a Colour Override node to replace all of the table's colors with 0 alpha colors.

this is a very efficient method of removing objects from a lot of frames at once!

cutter nodes can be used to further mask away any remaining parts of a shadow that you don't want. example:

Manually Adding The Shadow Back In

no node fuckery here. i simply made a new layer and drew the table's shadow by hand for each frame and included it in my shadow composite.

this little bit of manual shadow animation really ties everything together and sells the effect in my opinion.

Part Three: Finishing Touches

these aren't necessary, but they add a little bit of polish

Mesh Warping To Add Form

the shadows subtly wrap around the curtains as if they were a little bit round. just gotta run the shadows through an Apply Peg Transformation node connected to a Mesh Warp node. be warned that the bezier handles on this thing are a lot more finicky than the other bezier handles in harmony and sometimes they bite you.

Blurring Spotlight Edges

in the real world, shadows get blurrier the further away they are from the object that's casting them. it probably would've been a lil more realistic if i slightly blurred the shadows that the characters cast on the curtains as well, but i thought they looked better sharp here. realism doesn't actually matter just do whatever looks Good Enough.

Floor Reflection

i used an Apply Peg Transformation node along with a simple peg to layer a flipped instance of the curtain's Lit shading on top of the floor. blur it (more vertically than horizontally,) set the blending mode to add, and lower the opacity. done!

that's about all i can think of right now. thanks for reading if you got this far!

as a bonus here is what the whole node tree for this animation looks like. most of the shadow & background stuff is happening over in the upper right cluster.

#magic show #making of

[extasiswings]

Omg I know what you mean and agree 1000%. By the time I reached the third book I couldn't care less about Richard's happiness, especially after the humiliating way he spoke to Dom. He doesn't want Dom, because he can't accept the man's desires but at the same time he does seem to want anyone else to want him. Honestly I'm surprised my kindle is still in one piece with the way I gripped whenever Richard said he loved him while treating him like shit.

Luckily, Dom found Silas, who not only treats him with respect and care, but also isn't afraid to tell Richard where to shove it.

Honestly, A Seditious Affair is my favourite of the series, and it's not usually my cup of tea, kink wise, but Charles didn't such a great job of making me care about Dom and Silas (as well as not being too graphic on the sex) that I just fell in love with it.

Exactly…exactly…in A Fashionable Indulgence, Richard is high-handed and obnoxious at points, but to a point where I could be convinced to give him a certain amount of grace with a well-crafted backstory. But once you hit A Seditious Affair and actually see his interactions with Dom in detail and get more of their relationship background…OOF.

And the thing is, once we do find out his backstory, it’s definitely more understandable why he’s uncomfortable with the things Dom is into, but even so, that personal discomfort doesn’t give him license to constantly tell one of his best friends and a man he claims to love that he’s perverse/depraved/disgusting/that there’s something wrong with him. There’s no excuse for that, and if I were in Dom’s shoes, I probably would have told him to go fuck himself ages before the point when they finally have it out at Quex’s over Richard planning to make Silas disappear (which…that scene…everybody cheered). Hearing in Dom’s own words and POV how he basically internalized that and felt ashamed of himself and his own desires for years because the first man he ever loved was so repulsed by them really makes it hard to come back from as a reader and not hold that against Richard forever (and I say this as someone who is a big fan of KJ Charles and appreciates authors writing characters who are very flawed and fuck up in very human ways).

And especially since Dom’s kink (with Silas at any rate) is????? Not even that intense as things go??????? Like it’s clear that Dom previously had a period where he engaged in incredibly unsafe kink (about which Richard was in fairness right to be concerned), but at least with Silas their scenes are so much more mental than physical? Yes, they’ll play rough and he’ll wind up bruised and sore but since Silas won’t touch toys (whips, floggers, etc), their scenes are like…occasionally some light bondage, dirty talk, occasionally some light CNC. The only time Silas ever actually injures him is that (deserved) punch to the face, which is not done in the context of a scene and they don’t have sex afterwards. All things considered, what they’re into isn’t that freaky, Richard is just a grade A prude. (And yet, I really do like David so one must make do…)

Totally agree that A Seditious Affair is the best of the series though. It’s just so good.

#chapel talks #gatergirl #ask

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 42: Remembrance of Dreams

Rest easy, child. Moiraine is keeping you safe from the spoilers. This post is filled with spoilers for the whole of The Wheel of Time series and I am trying to get them stabbed into you, but you can avoid your fate! Just block the tags! Leave this post! Read the damn books or whatever! And don't blame me if you see spoilers from here on out.

This chapter's icon is the ravens, a way of representing the Shadow that the gang is desperately trying to find a way to escape. Luckily, there's nothing really going on to threaten them in this chapter.

He took five steps into the library before he realized that everyone else had stopped, crowded together in the doorway, openmouthed and goggling. A brisk blaze crackled in the fireplace, and Loial was sprawled on the long couch, reading, a small black cat with white feet curled and half asleep on his stomach. When they entered he closed the book with a huge finger marking his place and gently set the cat on the floor, then stood to bow formally.

Aww, Loial snuggles with kitties too. This book doesn't have enough kitty snuggles, there should have been one in literally every chapter.

(Also it's cute that Rand forgets how unusual Ogiers are from everyone else's perspective because he's just that buddy-buddy with Loial already. Rand's a good friend.)

Loial liked to talk, and talk at length when he had the slightest chance, though he usually seemed to think a story needed two or three hundred years of background to make it understood. His sense of time was very strange; to him three hundred years seemed a reasonable length of time for a story or explanation to cover.

To an Ogier, this is only providing a decade or so of context, which isn't anywhere near as much.

“You always were crazy,” Perrin said, and for a moment he, too, sounded as of old. “No,” Nynaeve said. Tears made her eyes bright, but she was smiling. “None of us blames you.”

Dammit people, more hugs! Hug Mat! Hug Moiraine! Hug Loial especially and then tell me how fluffy it was.

“Yes,” Moiraine said quietly, “he still has the dagger.” The laughter and talk was still going on among the rest of the Emond’s Field folk, but she had noticed his sudden intake of breath and had seen what had caused it. She moved closer to his chair, where she did not have to raise her voice for him to hear clearly.

Rand again shows he's the overall cleverest of the group in that he notices what's up right away, and Moiraine briefly flirts with being the kind of assistant to Rand that she should be by telling him the facts straight out. See how well you two get along in this conversation, Moiraine? All of your conversations could have been like that!

Rand made a sound, and Moiraine raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought they were looking for Mat and me,” he said.

Rand's reacting to Moiraine's infodumping, which again shows just how great a team they are when Moiraine is providing all the facts instead of trying to manipulate them! This sequence is really good in the trust she offers to everyone and it's a shame she reverts to her old habits again by the second book. I blame Siuan showing up, it made her feel young again.

“That’s what I always say,” Mat said blandly, though he was suddenly grinning hard, and Egwene asked in a decidedly neutral voice, “Who’s Elayne?”

Egwene, you spent several weeks dancing with the hottest boy you could find. You don't get to be pissy about Rand interacting with another girl. It's just annoyingly hypocritical and we are leaving the part of the book where romantic misunderstandings are fun.

I met some Tuatha’an a few years back, and they wanted to learn the songs we sing to trees. Actually, the trees won’t listen to very many anymore, and so not many Ogier learn the songs. I have a scrap of that Talent, so Elder Arent insisted I learn. I taught the Tuatha’an what they could learn, but the trees never listen to humans. For the Traveling People they were only songs, and just as well received for that, since none was the song they seek.

Please internalize this, WoT fandom. The Tuatha'an aren't stupid, they're well aware of the Ogier songs, and the Ogier songs aren't what they're looking for. No song is actually what they're looking for, but the Ogier songs can't even be sung properly by people so there's no match here at all.

“That’s what the Tinkers told us,” Perrin said. “Yes,” Egwene said, “the Aiel story.” Moiraine turned her head slowly. No other part of her moved. “What story?”

See what it feels like when people won't communicate useful information, Moiraine?

(Also I am 90% certain that it was only the Three Oaths that kept Perrin and Egwene alive through this exchange, and also Mat and Rand once the dream info comes out.)

Had I known after the first such, I might have been able to. . . . There has not been a Dreamwalker in Tar Valon for nearly a thousand years, but I could have tried.

I'm pretty sure that the real reason the boys don't tell Moiraien, Pattern-wise, is that she would have worn herself out trying to help. She sadly cannot.

He can still send Halfmen against you, and Trollocs, and Draghkar, and other things, but he cannot make you his unless you let him.

I'm mostly quoting this bit to show that Moiraine and Lan are in definite philosophical disagreement here. She's way more hopeful about the task at hand than he is, though these Two Rivers folk are probably making her less optimistic by the millisecond.

Out of the mass of humanity, the Dark One can touch an individual only by chance, unless that person seeks it. But for a time, at least, you three are central to the Pattern.

Also of course, the boys aren't being touched by the Dark One. They're instead being influenced by Ishamael, who is now free enough to do whatever he pleases.

“The Father of Lies is a good name for the Dark One,” Moiraine replied. “It was always his way to seed the worm of doubt wherever he could. It eats at men’s minds like a canker. When you believe the Father of Lies, it is the first step toward surrender. Remember, if you surrender to the Dark One, he will make you his.”

And this is the part where Moiraine loses the trust again. She could have told Rand the truth, but she sidesteps so blatantly instead that he has no choice but to distrust her.

“The Pattern presents a crisis, and at the same time a way to surmount it. If I did not know it was impossible, I could almost believe the Creator is taking a hand. There is a way.”

I wonder if Robert Jordan read much of Asimov's Foundation. In those stories, a man had deduced a way to predict the future in broad strokes and had established the titular Foundation to avert the 30,000 years of barbarism he foresaw. As the project would still take a thousand years, he left behind recordings identifying various turning points and leaving hints for the Foundation's members to use to swing events the proper way - they were referred to in-universe as "Seldon crises".

Much like Wheel of Time, Asimov died with this story unfinished and had later authors revisit the series, though sadly they only did a prequel trilogy instead of resolving the cliffhanger of the final chronological novel. It also is getting adapted these days and attracting a lot of alt-right rage for having women and people of color in the cast instead of the series of interchangeable white dudes - and hopefully Amazon's Wheel adaptation will continue the parallels by having a much stronger second season after a shakier first one.

Anyway I dunno why this notion struck me here, it's just something about the way Moiraine said it. Fun fact: the Creator can intervene and we'll be seeing that before the book ends, though he won't be doing much useful.

“No!” Loial said, an emphatic rumble like thunder. Everyone turned to look at him and he blinked under the attention, but there was nothing hesitant about his words. “If we enter the Ways, we will all die—or be swallowed by the Shadow.”

Oh yeah, this is probably another thing that the chapter icon was referencing. But we'll see more about that soon. Next chapter: more bad dreams!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #perrin aybara #egwene al'vere #nynaeve al'meara #loial #moiraine damodred #mat cauthon #lan mandragoran

[cherry-valentine]

Fall 2022 Anime

Boku no Hero Academia Season 6 is the first season I’ve come into having already read the manga. Halfway through last season, I started reading the manga and have now caught up, so this is my first time starting a season while knowing exactly what’s going to happen. A plot summary seems silly at this point, so I’ll skip right to the meat of this write-up. In my opinion, the War Arc covered in this season is where the story peaked. This is by far my favorite arc, but it also ushers in some of the worst writing decisions I’ve ever seen in a series this popular. Luckily those baffling choices come in late enough in this arc that they don’t ruin it (they just ruin the rest of the series lol). I’ve long had a love-hate relationship with this show, because I enjoy it and it does a lot of things well (and the things it does well, it does really REALLY well), but it also pisses me off in a lot of ways (the treatment of the lady characters overall is my biggest gripe, though I will admit that this improves the longer the series goes on). But this season? So far? It’s fantastic. The animation is great, as usual. The fights are exciting, the little snippets of comedy (this is an overall serious arc though) are on point. This is also the arc that best displays the dark side of hero society, the corruption, the forgotten victims, the people who have suffered in this sort of world, which is fascinating. Shigaraki in particular makes an excellent villain, and that’s all I’m going to say about him to avoid manga spoilers (I could, and maybe will, write an entire essay about his character and how it’s developed in the manga). Since this arc is so damn good, BNHA is at the top of my list this season. A first for this series!

Blue Lock is a new sports anime, this one about soccer. Last season, while watching Ao Ashi (another soccer anime), I kept seeing Blue Lock mentioned in the comments as a “better soccer series”, and that it was getting an anime. Well here it is. While I do appreciate a good, straightforward sports anime like Ao Ashi, these days a sports anime has to stand out in some way to get me excited about it. Blue Lock stands out in two main ways: the high production values that give it outstanding visuals, and the absolutely bonkers premise (all the best high school strikers in Japan are gathered up, told to live 24/7 in a state of the art training camp, and are weeded out through grueling matches against each other and are encouraged to be traitorous assholes, all to arrive at one boy left to be the best striker in Japan). Right away, it separates itself from other sports anime with that setup. It effectively cuts out any and all drama that doesn’t involve the sport. These guys don’t go to school, so there are no scenes of them in class or interacting with characters not on their “team”. No scenes at home, involving family members. They don’t even have team managers or coaches. It really does boil the entire story down to these guys playing soccer. That’s a pretty bold move, but it pays off. And going back to those visuals, the animation quality is amazing. The character designs are vivid and interesting. The colors are just beautiful. The only complaint I have in this area is that the backgrounds are all pretty drab. This makes sense in context (as they’re living in a training facility), and actually might be a good thing, as it makes the colorful characters stand out even more. Speaking of which, all of them are fun, and the main character Isagi is easy to root for, even when his inner jerk is dragged out. All in all, Blue Lock is one of the better sports anime I’ve seen in a while.

Yowamushi Pedal has a new season. Watching it made me realize how much I missed this batshit crazy show. It’s a sports anime about bicycle racing, and it ranks just under Prince of Tennis as being one of the most unrealistic sports anime I’ve seen. From the guy who has named his pecs Andy and Frank (and literally talks to them, and they literally warn him of dangers!) to the skinny little guy who can immediately expand his torso like a balloon (something about being able to expand his lungs but it looks hilarious), to the tendency several riders have to go into a frenzy and race at top speed with their tongues hanging out of their heads (yes, dangle your tongues out while bicycling very fast through the mountains! Totally not a terrible idea!). Then there are the moments when a rider from one of the teams has to drop out of the race after doing something cool, for the benefit of the team (basically sacrificing himself). These are treated with all the drama and severity of literal death scenes, and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. But above all of this, there’s the gloriously creepy villain Midousuji, who is hands-down the best villain in sports anime history. He’s gross and terrible and downright monstrous, but damn if he isn’t the most entertaining character in the show. The animation is fine, but the character designs are unique. This is a weird anime, but it’s never boring! Go into it expecting a wild, weird, fun time, and you won’t be disappointed.

Spy x Family is on its second cour, and there’s not much more I can say about it than I did a couple of seasons back. Following a highly skilled spy as he puts together a fake family consisting of a telepathic child, a wife who is a secret assassin, and now a precognitive dog, the show is adorable and very funny. The animation is stellar, with extremely expressive faces, lovely backgrounds, and characters that never fail to stay on model. It’s a little more fast paced than the usual “soothing feel good” anime, but for me it still falls into that category. Though the stakes are occasionally high (with characters being in actual mortal danger), the overall soft tone of this series assures us that the threats will always be neutralized, so there’s little tension in that regard. The charm of the show lies in its super likable cast and wonderful visuals. High on my watch list.

Raven of the Inner Palace is a unique series about a certain mysterious consort to the emperor in ancient China. Though she has the title of consort, she has little contact with the emperor and instead uses her magical powers to solve mysteries around the palace, talk to the dead, help spirits cross over, etc. Of course, when the emperor meets her, he decides to become her friend. The show is basically about their mystery-solving adventures with an ever expanding cast of support characters. It’s a relatively simple setup, but the ancient Chinese setting gives it a specific charm. The art is gorgeous, with breathtaking clothing designs and beautiful scenery. The music is also a high point, with excellent opening/ending themes and background songs. The Raven consort herself, called Shouxue, is an interesting character. She’s a bit of a tsundere, but in this case her standoffish attitude makes sense for the plot (she has a tragic backstory that necessitates being wary of others, especially the emperor). She softens as the series moves along, but she remains a powerful character. Her growing relationship with the emperor isn’t exactly original (of course they’re going to end up falling in love at some point - I can predict that without reading summaries of the light novels this is based on), but they have enough chemistry to make them fun to watch regardless. This is a slower-paced show than most of the other anime I’m watching this season, and it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch From Mercury could be called “the show that pissed off a thousand fanboys”, with a lot of people calling it “woke Gundam”. Apparently, if you have a female protagonist in a Gundam tv series for the first time since the franchise began in the 70‘s, it’s automatically woke (never mind that Tomino has wanted to have a female protagonist since the 90‘s). Add to that the *possibility* of a lesbian couple (and to be honest I don’t think the series will have the guts to follow through with it) and the fact that female characters in general seem to have larger and more important roles in the story, and you have an army of angry manchildren on your hands. In all seriousness, the show does have a different vibe from most previous Gundam series (but not all). If I had to choose its closest relative, I’d say its Reconguista in G, with its school-setting and relaxed atmosphere for the first chunk of the series. Most hilarious to me are the people assuming this series won’t get “serious” and have actual mobile suit battles (as opposed to the mobile suit “duels” that take place at the school). I mean, are they just pretending the prologue episode and all the shadowy political machinations don’t exist? Regardless, the show is great so far and would be an excellent starting point for people who never really got into Gundam but are curious about it. The animation is gorgeous and the plot is (at least for now) easy to follow. The two female leads are likable and have great chemistry. And yeah, it’s basically “Utena with giant robots”. If you’ve watched Utena, you’ll be the embodiment of that Leonardo Dicaprio meme where he’s pointing at the screen while you watch the first couple of episodes. But hey, if a plot setup is good, why not use it again in a different setting? Hell, let’s have Utena in feudal Japan! Utena in the wild west! Utena in a zombie apocalypse! I’m here for it.

To Your Eternity Season 2 opened on a surprisingly weak note for such an excellent series, but it’s already sorted itself out. The show follows an immortal entity called Fushi who can take the form of any living being it comes into contact with (after that being has died). Fushi most often uses (and generally prefers) the form of a young man, so I’ll be using he/him to refer to the entitiy. The series is, basically, about Fushi moving through the world and learning about life while also fighting creatures called the Nockers that keep attacking him for unknown reasons (most often harming the humans around him in frankly horrific ways). Each person that Fushi comes to know eventually becomes another form he can take (as he is immortal, of course he outlives everyone). The interesting thing is that he can use whatever skills that person (or creature) had, leading to at least one person spending years cultivating certain skills so that Fushi would have access to them after she dies. Unlike with season one, season two skips large chunks of time, several generations in a single episode at one point. At first, I was a little annoyed that we were not getting to spend much time with the characters (in one infuriating case, a major character from season one returns only to almost immediately die). Season one’s emotional beats were so powerful because it let us get to know and grow to love the human characters before they inevitably died. But! Thankfully, season two has now settled into a story arc and is letting us grow to love a new set of characters. And yes, they will eventually die, like always, but the point of the story isn’t “will these characters die or not?”, it’s “what effect will these characters ultimately have on Fushi?”. And figuring that out is what makes the series so endearing.

Golden Kamuy has a new season (I think this is season four, but honestly it’s hard to keep up with all these shows after they get past season two). From the start of season one, this has been one of my favorite modern anime series. It has a strong plot, unique character designs, a compelling setting, and some of the most bizarre but charming humor I’ve come across. It’s refreshing in the way it never sexualizes its female characters, but instead chooses to objectify its large assortment of buff, handsome male characters with frequent nude scenes that seem to linger on their well-toned bodies. Despite this, the show is firmly seinen (aimed at an adult male audience). It’s actually been fun to watch the guys in the comments questioning their sexuality in real time. I don’t care what your sexuality is, you’re going to walk away from this show with at least a minor crush on Ogata or Sugimoto. Probably both. Fanservice aside, the show is just wild at times. It can get brutally gory, then it can be hilarious, then it can make you cry. It has a Gintama-like quality in that it does lots of different things very well. If you’re not watching this series, you’re missing out (something I think I’ve said about it before, but it bears repeating).

Chainsaw Man is definitely this season’s most hyped show. I had avoided the manga because, just from looking at the covers and some other art, it looked like it was full of unnecessary fanservice and that the lady characters were highly sexualized. Before the anime started, I did a little googling to see what the general opinion was. From everything I read, most people (regardless of gender) had generally positive opinions on how the female characters were treated, so I decided to try the anime. The basic setup is that there are creatures called Devils that can embody certain things, like a Gun Devil or a Chainsaw Devil or a Bat Devil. A young man named Denji, who is probably one of the most “down on his luck” protagonists I’ve seen in a long time (he’s broke, orphaned, pratically homeless, practically starving, and has already sold one eye, one kidney, and one testicle just to survive) ends up combining with the only thing he really has in the world: his pet Devil dog. This gives him the power of the Chainsaw Devil, which he can transform into to fight other Devils. He’s quickly recruited by a group of government sanctioned Devil Hunters who are searching for the powerful, menacing Gun Devil. The setup sounds like typical shounen action fare, but the series goes a bit darker than I expected fairly early on, and maintains a unique atmosphere. Denji is fun to root for just because he came from such a humble place, but his lack of social skills makes him come across as a jerk at times. It’s understandable, given his background. Every shounen action series has its own “thirst trap” character that’s super popular with the ladies in the audience, and this one has Aki. The anime wisely spends the majority of its budget on subtle little movements he makes, like lighting a cigarette or taking a drink of coffee. I think there’s a whole animation team dedicated to the flow of his hair when he wears it down. As there should be. Overall, the series has a strange vibe to it but it’s highly entertaining.

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Blue Lock Best Opening Theme: Golden Kamuy Best Ending Theme: Spy x Family Best New Male Character: Isagi (Blue Lock) Best New Female Character: Shouxue (Raven of the Inner Palace)

#Anime Reviews #Anime Recommendations #Seasonal Anime #Fall 2022 Anime #Text #Chainsaw Man #Golden Kamuy #Blue Lock #Spy x Family #Yowamushi Pedal

[shytulipghost]

Did anyone see this play as a kid?

I thought it would be fun to share what first introduced me to Jekyll and Hyde, since I haven't seen anyone talk about it and there's not much content about it online.

This is a play made by a company called The Performers and it's aimed at children who are learning English (Spanish is my first language). I saw it in 2013 with my class, when we were in fifth grade.

For this post, I tried to look for video clips of the 2013 show (called "Jekyll and Hyde") on the group's Facebook page, but I could only find videos from the 2018 show (they changed the name to "Crazy Jekyll"). From what I've seen, everything is mostly the same, so I'll be using those videos to complement the plot summary and add a few comments. But first, let me give you some information about the company, so you have some context.

About the company:

"THE PERFORMERS is an International Theatre Company which produces plays in English to serve the educational needs of English language teaching institutions." (from The Performers' Twitter profile)

Their plays are aimed at three age groups: kindergarten students, children aged 9-12 and teenagers (they have different plays for each group). The ones made for the first two groups are original musicals and they have a moral at the end. I don't know much about the ones made for teenagers, but from what I've seen on their social media, they seem to adapt Shakespeare's plays.

Before the pandemic, they used to perform every year in local theaters across Latin America, mainly in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico. Nowadays, their plays are on digital format, but you need to sign up on their website to watch them.

My school was familiar with the company as we had seen two previous plays from them: one in kindergarten, which was about colours, and the other one in fourth grade, which was about Mycroft Holmes pretending to be his brother. The play I'm about to talk about is the last one my school took us to see (we saw it with the students from fourth and sixth grade).

What I remember of the plot:

The first thing that you need to know is that this isn’t a theatrical adaptation of the novella, it just has Dr. Jekyll as the main character. All the other characters are original and the whole show takes place in the lab. 

NOTE: The summary will be in normal colour and my comments will be in orange, in case you want to read them later.

Okay, I’ll start summarizing the plot now:

So in this version, Jekyll has an assistant called Doris and, together, they make the potion, which they refer to as the “dual-personality formula” (yeah, they go for the pop culture interpretation). Why do they make the potion? I don’t remember, but I think it’s never explained. Let’s just say they do it for science. 

Anyway, Jekyll tells Doris to leave for a moment and, once he’s alone, he drinks the potion and turns into Mr. Hyde, but not for too long. Since this is a musical for kids, he doesn’t do anything horrible; he just says “I’m evil!” (figuratively) and that’s it. Let me just say that 10-year-old me found the first transformation scene very uncomfortable:

(Sorry it had to be Facebook posts. There are no clips on YouTube. Luckily, you don't need an account to watch them.)

Warning: flashing lights

Personally, I think the 2013 actor did a better job showing that the transformation is supposed to be painful, but still, in the video you can see that I'm not exaggerating. Some children may find this scene uncomfortable or, in the case of the audience shown in the clip and this other one, absolutely terrifying.

I also think the 2013 version had a more serious tone because I remember the lights stayed red when Hyde was talking, he had a deeper voice and there was ominous music in the background (not the same as the one in the video). Instead of saying "I feel powerful!" and all that stuff, he introduced himself as he walked slowly on the stage (he spoke like this: "I'm... Mister... Hyde...). I wish there was a video from 2013 so I could make an actual comparison and analyze it critically.

Worried about the potential dangers, Jekyll puts the potion in a box and tells Doris to hide it somewhere and not tell him where it is. However, he changes his mind later and asks her to bring him back the box. He drinks the potion again, Hyde says evil stuff (seriously, he doesn't do anything), turns back into Jekyll and the cycle repeats two or three times. Sorry for not going into more detail, I only remember the most important plot events.

Occasionally, throughout the play, a man shows up on the TV screen and checks up on the other characters (I think he's supposed to be Jekyll's boss or supervisor). He doesn't contribute much to the plot; he is just the comic relief character. There's this running gag that he always has problems with the webcam and, before leaving, he asks the others if they can see him and the object he is holding. The dialogue goes like this:

TV man: Can you see me?

Characters on stage: No.

TV man: Can you see this X? (for example, hamburger, Barbie doll, etc.)

Characters on stage: No.

[TV man leaves]

Moving on with the story, it is revealed that Doris has a crush on Jekyll, but she hasn't told him yet. Soon after this, she meets Hyde and starts to also have feelings for him because of his good looks (it seems like they took more inspiration from The Nutty Professor, where the Hyde character is supposed to be handsome). Jekyll, who is love with Doris as well, starts to drink more and more, so that she gets to spend more time with his "evil", but charming self. Every time he transformed into Hyde, I was like “No, not again” (I didn’t like how he moaned in pain). 

At some point, there is a love duet and this is where the video is different from what I remember:

This part is weird because I remember the song was slower and the assistant sang with Hyde, not with Jekyll. Mandela effect, perhaps? Also, I'm glad they kept the funniest part in the video (1:11). The TV man was my favourite character.

Okay, I need to explain the following so you can understand the ending:

By the time the fifth or sixth transformation occurs, Hyde decides to hide (oh my God...) the potion in his vest pocket so that he never turns back into Jekyll again and nobody else finds the formula. It is at this point that the play treats the potion as if it were his heart or something similar. Keep the last part in mind.

Later in the story, two rival scientists arrive and they plan to steal Jekyll's potion so they can become famous. They sing a catchy song about it:

After that, they meet the other two characters and ask where the potion is. Hyde says something like "I don't know what you're talking about" and they argue for a while before being interrupted by the TV man, who does his gag one more time.

I'll be honest: I don't remember if anything relevant happens afterwards. I saw this almost ten years ago, so sorry for not having a perfect memory. Let's just skip to the ending...

Eventually, the other characters realize that Hyde has the potion and needs it to "survive", so the rival's assistant runs up to him, takes the potion out of his pocket and throws it to the ground. The glass shatters... Hyde yells something like "NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" and disappears for good. He doesn't return briefly like in the Broadway musical.

Jekyll turns back to normal and confesses everything, including his love for Doris, who also admits that she is in love with him. She adds that he didn't need to drink the potion because she already loved him for who he really is. The play ends with the main characters singing the moral of the story.

In retrospect:

When I left the theater, I didn't feel anything (I was still thinking about the first and last transformation scene), but deep down I really enjoyed it. I mean, why else would I remember this play? Overall, it was good. It had funny moments and I still remember some of the songs.

Looking back, I think the only problem they had was with Hyde. He tells the audience that he's evil, but he doesn't show that he's evil. He doesn't do much actually. Look, obviously, they couldn't show him committing murder because of the target audience, but there were other ways they could have done it. They could have made him break stuff in the lab, make fun of the other characters (the rivals, for example) or do pranks on them. Something that would have given him a more active role in the story. Nonetheless, it's still a good musical for children.

Although this is what first introduced to me to Jekyll and Hyde, I didn't become interested in it until 4 years later, when I watched a "Confrontation" animatic on YouTube. As I was watching it, I thought "Wait a minute, those two names seem familiar". I decided to watch two more animatics from the same channel and, the moment I saw the potion and the transformation, I remembered the play. From then on, I began to watch more videos related to the Broadway musical, because it was entirely different from the one I had seen, and somehow, 6 years later, I got here.

Well, that's the end of my anecdote. If you made it this far, I'm glad that I didn't bore you. The reason why I made this post was because I was curious if someone else saw it, considering that the company used to perform in various countries. I tried to look for more information about the 2013 show on the company's Twitter and Facebook page, but I couldn't find much. The only thing I know is that they performed in Argentina (in my province, at least) and Uruguay (based on the description of this very old post), but I'm not sure about the other countries I mentioned earlier (maybe they performed the previous year in those places). So if anyone in the fandom is Latin American, tell me if you also saw the play in primary school. If not, it doesn't matter. I just wanted to share something from my childhood.

Feel free to share if you had a similar experience as a kid.

#my post #long post #jekyll and hyde #dr jekyll and mr hyde #i'm gonna be surprised if someone else saw it

[orokay]

I’m so curious about your OC Mallorie, what is her backstory? What does she do specifically for Cerberus?

Oooooh >:) I've both been hoping someone would ask abt her and dreading it bc I have information floating around in my head but not a lot of concrete stuff planned out on her background, especially the early stuff.

I know her mom passed away when she was pretty young and her dad was in the Alliance but did something that caused him to get dishonorably discharged. The pair moved to Omega when she was in her tweens, maybe a bit earlier, and her dad joined up with the Blue Suns. She spent a lot of time on her own since her dad did a lot of off world contract work and at one point he just never came back. She assumed that he'd been killed in action, but at some point she learns that he'd either come into a lot of money on a job or cut a deal with someone or something and just decided to start a new life elsewhere. As I said, this part is the most fuzzy for me because I have basic ideas for it, but I haven't ironed out exact details lol.

Growing up, her dad did the bare minimum (and often less) of parenting, but he and some of his buddies did teach her a bit on how to defend herself, mainly so she could defend their apartment while he was away. She put those skills to use to survive on her own once he disappeared.

It was the usage of those skills and her desperation for companionship that caught the attention of and made her easy prey for a Cerberus recruiter named Marina. Marina befriended and took in Mallorie when she was at her most vulnerable and when Mal was sufficiently dependent on her, she introduced her to Cerberus. By the time Mallorie realized what Cerberus was, she felt trapped. She was very young, had no support system outside of the group, and the only person who 'cared' about her was in the group. She didn't believe she'd be able to leave alive and if she did, she didn't think she'd be able to build up a life for herself, especially with the looming risk of Cerberus hunting her down. She kept those feelings close to herself and wasn't seen as a risk because of her dependent relationship with Marina.

IIRC, Phantoms are a new type of unit because they use a lot of reverse engineered reaper tech. I initially had her as a former Phantom, but because of that info, I'm thinking she was trained in a sort of Phantom prototype unit (maybe based off of N7 Shadows since they seem pretty similar) and those units went on to get 'upgraded' with reaper tech around ME3.

She was in Cerberus for seven years, a large portion of which was combat training, but also included low and high risk missions the further along in her training she got. Her conscience ate away at her the entire time but she still didn't think she could leave as the more she saw what Cerberus was capable of, the less she believed she could get out in one piece even with her acquired skill sets. During her time with them, however, she encountered an alliance agent that she began sending whatever data she could get her hands on in an attempt to alleviate her guilty conscience. Most of the stuff was likely junk, she wasn't ever important enough to access anything big generally, but she needed to do something. It was when she did stumble upon and send out data on something big that she was finally found out. She was tortured for information on her contact, but luckily the base she was being held in was raided by a Hierarchy patrol before they could kill her. She was brought to the Citadel for medical care and, wishing to avoid deeper questioning on why she was on the base to begin with, hitched a ride off station as soon as she was stable enough to not die in transit, ending up back on Omega.

I wasn't going to do this initially, but here's some stuff copy & pasted from a conversation about her that goes more into the context of her mindset that contributes to why she joined and stayed with Cerberus:

I think it manifests in self destructive behaviors like trying dangerous things on a whim or nearly picking fights with people who could definitely kill her by making stupid comments to strangers on Omega, or, going back further, joining a human supremacist group after her father abandoned her when it genuinely goes against who she is as a person. I definitely need to go back into her profile and see what I had that caused her to join Cerberus, but I think whatever it was was definitely helped by them swooping in when she was young and incredibly vulnerable and giving her a place to belong. I can imagine there are probably Cerberus recruiters who get people to join the same way people recruit for cults. I think the woman that Mal killed in that one short bit I wrote three billion years ago who was sort of implied to have been an ex of Mal's (I think I was still mostly closeted back then and the intention wasn't there, but when I reread it a year or so ago I was like "….the subtext…") was either the person who recruited her, or at the very least the person who kept her from really looking behind the curtain for a long time. Eventually her morality did win out (obviously) but she definitely stuck around longer than she would have because she didn't want to lose the only friend she had and kept talking herself out of seeing what Cerberus was until she couldn't anymore. In a lot of ways, Mal is extremely lonely and gullible in the sense that she'll do anything for a sense of connection. If you tell her you care about her, she'll do anything or be anyone to make sure you keep caring about her, because she's terrified of being left behind and doesn't believe that the person she really is is good enough to keep people invested. Literally brought a Vorcha into her home and nursed him back to health and then kept him around afterwards, when they're considered by most to be like… pests. I definitely think she did it because she's a genuinely good and caring person, but I also think that an underlying part of why she opened her house to him even after he could technically go out on his own is that she saw an opportunity for friendship. I think she gets less desperate to hold on to all of them and starts to relax once she realizes that the rest of the group genuinely cares about her and won't be going anywhere, but I think there was definitely a period at the beginning of her friendship w/ everyone where she would do anything to keep them around which probably manifested mostly in her doing dumb stunts to keep them entertained or like… always trying to pay for stuff or whatever.

#i hope this is somewhat coherent sfjkdf #there's a lot of context missing i feel #but i'm soooo bad at explaining my characters like this it all makes perfect sense in my head #but when i type it out it's just goop #i wish i could beam my character channel for her on discord into everyone's brain #we mostly just talk abt the omega crew in the context of them all being little stinkers together so their pasts (at least my characters) #are a bit less fleshed out than their present shenanigans #mallorie #answered asks #some extra info about her: she never learned how to drive #she never finished high school (her education likely stopped when she first moved to omega- #altho she may have gotten some practical education after joining cerberus she never got a hs diploma) #she meets bugly and raska after becoming a regular at their corner store and regularly ordering the galaxy's most atrocious sandwich #her background makes sense in my head #but every time i try to type it out i can never get it to sound right #for the most part we made these characters to explore #the lives of a bunch of nobodies on omega #and a lot of our stuff about them is silly #which really contrasts with their dark dark backstories jsklfjd #like most of them had bad lives but they found #in each other a group of people that makes #living even on omega fun #not art

[neversleepever]

My secret Santa gave me "art" they "drew" but it's ai art.

I just have to get this off my chest.

So for the past couple of years I've been doing an online secret Santa. I've had a good time both giving and receiving.

This year my secret Santa sent me a few little things I really loved. They also gifted me two pieces of "art" that they "drew". It's blatantly obvious it's ai art.

When you send your gift you notify the system. In your notification you can add shipping information as well as a note for your giftee. The note my secret Santa sent me only referenced their "art" and they specifically said that they "drew". I thought that might be the only thing I would get, which I would have been happy with if it was real art. I would have been happy even if it was real crappy art. Because at least a person put in time and effort. That's love.

Luckily their "art" was not the only thing they gave me. The gifts they did give I really did love. It was a few fun little things and an art book from one of my favorite artists. But trying to pass off ai art as their own just sours things.

Before I show you the "art", I'm going to have to add some context. When you sign up for this secret Santa you have to fill out a profile with things you like. I added a bunch of random things I like. Like how I love cyberpunk (the genre and the video game/ttrpg). I also listed all my pets. Including my 4 tarantulas. Clearly they just put "tarantula + cyberpunk" into an ai.

Cyberpunk is a fantasy genre. You can take a certain amount of artistic liberty. I just can't imagine an artist who can make almost photo realistic art make so many fundamental mistakes

Without further-a-do.

Where to begin? Nothing is symmetrical. Forget 8 legs. I would be happy if the same number of legs were on each side.

Many of the legs don't touch the ground. Probably because many of the legs aren't even full legs. They just stop at the first joint. Legs are going in all directions. The leg in the top right corner of the bottom picture looks like it's going behind the building.

Items in the foreground are blurry but the background is crisp and clear. It looks a little better in the pic I posted but in person it's really obvious.

"Hey there handsome. You happy to see me?"

"Yeah, you should have that looked at"

Where is this even coming from?

I just can't believe they thought they could get away with it. Obviously I know tarantula anatomy very well. You also don't need to be an anatomy expert to know legs need to touch the ground to use them. It's the lying that I hate. If they were honest that it was ai art, I wouldn't be so mad. I hate ai art but I hate people who try to pass off ai art as their own even more.

But also, I put in my profile that I'M AN ARTIST!!!

I did say I was a beginner. But just because my skill level is still beginner doesn't mean I don't know art basics. I've spent my whole life surrounded by art, going to art museums, art shows, art festivals. Looking at art critically. I even have family that works in an art gallery. I've spent my whole life around artists.

I was originally not going to call them out. I've been trying to be a nicer person.

With this secret Santa process, it is considered customary to make a post of what you got and a little thank you note to your Santa. I did make a post thanking them for the other things I got. I did genuinely like the other things I got. But when it came to the "art" I just said it was... Interesting.

I was going to leave it at that until my secret Santa commented on my post. I knew it was them because their username matched the name they signed on the back of the pictures. Because of course they signed the back of the pictures.

They once again brought up that they "sketched" these pictures. That's when I just couldn't take it. I replied thanking them for the gifts and said the art was ai. They haven't responded yet and I don't care if they do.

We are truly in the worst timeline.

#Ai art #ai art is not art #Art #secret santa #art #angry vent #ai art generator #digital art

[daisylikesmedia]

Holiday Special 11: Day of the Doctor

Alright gamers it’s time. We’ve escaped 7B, my least favourite series of nuwho (so far in my reviews at least), and now we’re in Matt Smith’s final specials. Leading them is the 50th anniversary special of the show, Day of the Doctor, and it’s a biggie. The first multi-doctor story in the modern series, let’s see if it was worth the wait.

YES YES yesyesyes omg it was SO worth it. 10 & 11 work perfectly together and have that perfect bickering energy seen in classic multi-doctor stories between 2 & 3. And omg John Hurt?? I mean he is a legendary actor anyways, that was never in doubt, but his rugged war Doctor fits in so perfectly between these two. It’s just such a joy to watch these lot simply exist together on screen, and I wish we got more!! But alas, I’ll be happy with the awesome bits we got. 

This episode understands what Doctor Who fans value, and balances so much fanservice with a genuinely interesting plot. The plot itself being the journey of three Doctors to try and reverse the actions they took in the time war, which is HUGE. Moffat could’ve messed up an arc that had been running through the show since the revival started, and doing that would both massively damage what came before, and have some rough implications for the future of the show. Luckily, this saving Gallifrey retcon feels SO earned during this special, and it’s because of the perfect performances of our main cast throughout their runs and in this episode. You can SEE the regret that hangs over 10/11 with regards to how the time war played out, and having that mixed with the war Doctor’s reluctance + determination to finish the war. It just all works so well together, and it makes the TRIUMPH of seeing all 13 incarnations of the Doctor (including Capaldi hehe) save Gallifrey truly feel like that. A triumph.

Now this episode isn’t perfect, and I do think some of the side-plots get brushed past. The Zygon negotiation gets mega-hyped up and then they just resolve the situation in the background once the memory-zapper gets a zappin’. I also feel like Clara is kinda done dirty in this episode and doesn’t really get an opportunity to do much, but hey you’re competing with THESE doctors it’s probably a good thing she took a backseat for this story. The thing is though is that I’m so chill with these flaws being here. Sometimes I get worked up over little things like this when the positive side of the episode is lacking, but when the highs are THIS high I can’t sit here and complain can I?

And omg that final scene with the curator… wow. As someone who’s recently got into watching the classic series, being able to watch that scene back with the context of knowing just how magical 4 was in the role, it made me tear up a little not gonna lie. Tom Baker really is Doctor Who, and what an honour that we got to see him on screen one final time(?).

TL:DR/Overview: Day of the Doctor is a celebration of 50 years of this crazy sci-fi show we’ve fallen in love with. Whilst the story is a bit rough around the edges at times, the crux of the story is perfection. Every single Doctor actor nails it in this episode, and I’m not sure there’s a Doctor Who story out there that makes me smile more than this one. S tier.

#daisy reviews media #doctor who #11th doctor #day of the doctor

[peytonerickson]

Grad Show Reflection

Wow. Crazy to think we’re done grad show. Being on the Graphic Design team was a crazy, busy experience. I fell quite a bit behind my process blog with this class, but here’s all the process we did for all our responsibilities. 

So the logo was the first thing on the to do list. We discussed, after seeing everyone's mood boards, about having all the students make a letter for the logo. The class loved the idea and we got right on it. We had all the students pick a letter out of a mug and design it in any way they liked. 

After we got all the letters back, we realized that some people created them in different mediums (Jaiden drew hers, Alyssa made a sticker, and Katie was much more digital). So, after seeing these few letters, we felt inspired to make all the letters into different mediums showcasing the “variety” of our program and the different classes we take. Some issues we came across when making the logo were the random bright white spots (the outline of the sticker and the K’s ripped paper background) and felt that they stood out too much against the other letters. Another issue we encountered was the flow of the letters and how they should work together. Luckily (not sure how it happened) but the letter R and I perfectly had that movement that we needed, so once we saw that I feel like the rest just came to us. Took a while to take all the letters and make a nice, cohesive logo out of them but I’m really happy with how the final logo turned out.

Next up was posters. So with the posters, we also had to figure out what colours we wanted to use, the context on the posters, and of course the layout. This took much longer than it should’ve in my opinion. There was a lot of back and forth when it came to ideas, and when I thought we were close to finished more new ideas came to. Unfortunately, I had to leave for a week but when I was gone it seemed my team did good and we settled on colours (thanks to Jorden) and with that finished the style guide (thanks to Chelsea). Once we figured out the colours and sent them to other teams, social media and web got to work on their content using our colours (yellow, red, black) and fonts (agenda). 

I think we figured out pretty early in the game that the poster would just consist of the letters all the classmates made, slowly spelling out “Variety Pack”. It was tougher than I thought with how the letters should align and move with each other on the poster. After sharing a few concepts and poster layout ideas, the class gave great feedback and we kept moving!

Final poster to the right! I thought it was so cool seeing how our posters kept changing (but for the good)! I was really happy with how our final poster turned out. The letters were placed randomly, but there was still the sense of the grid with aligning the additional context with certain letters and spacing. It was also kinda weird seeing how our colours kept changing. For some reason the codes kept getting funny on us and the printers kept changing the colour, but it all worked out! 

Invitations! After a bit of research and just discussing ideas we came up with one right away. These we kept pretty simple, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. Chelsea thought of using the R and E for reception and exhibition which I love! The front side was our logo printed out on a sticker placed on top of the rip to give that idea of the sticker holding the paper together. We also decided to write “You’re Invited” with marker and once we did that, we kinda kept that theme going in a few others things from then on. The digital version was the same, but we just included the Variety Pack sticker look on the same side as the info. 

More posters! These posters we hung up in the three window displays by the gallery. When we were doing a walk around a couple weeks before the show, Jorden, Chelsea and myself felt that we needed to use these windows somehow. We thought it would be nice that when you first walk into the cultural center and see posters that explain and showcase our show would be nice.

We definitely new about the map poster and our show poster, but we didn’t know what to do for our third poster. We thought back to our handwritten feature we have around the show and decided to do something with that. Initially it was going to be “Thank You for coming to our show”, but we ultimately decided on “Welcome to Our Grad Show”. The map Jorden and I worked on together, and the Welcome poster I wrote but Chelsea designed. I was very happy with how these posters turned out :)

Next up, guides. These were by far the biggest headache makers. We were cutting it close on time so the three of us got these done up and finished in just a couple days. Our initial design had type go across the spread with all the graduates a little over the center. Unfortunately, however, when it came to printing there were a few issues. None of the pages aligned and the headshots for some reason came out looking really “greasy” and not good honestly. We were not happy with this, and given how close it was already to the show we decided to redesign it without spreads and just do the information on pages. 

The new and revised version printed out much nicer. Also, on top of things we decided to hand stich the books together. I personally struggled a bit with this but really enjoyed learning the process of it! I also loved the aesthetic it gave to our guides. It connected it more to us rather than just having some store do everything for us. 

Just a few days before the show as well, we hung up our exhibition statement and a giant “sticker” in the main entrance of our show. So the first thing people see when they walk in is our logo and can read about our show. (also shoutout to Chelsea for writing a killer statement). 

Aside from all this, we also made stickers for all the letters, trading cards for all the students and social media posts. I don’t have any photos on me right now like I thought I did so I will post some tomorrow morning! 

I should’ve been on my process more, but things just got away from me - which is no excuse, sorry. Overall, I am super proud of my Graphic Design team. We did A LOT. I never felt so much stress before but it was well worth it. Our show turned out so good and so us as a class. There's a few things I would do differently now knowing everything, but wouldn’t change anything about the show.

[redafi]

hey does anyone want some maybe-weird information?

So, as everyone does, I made a couple OCs when I was younger. But the OCs are not actually the weird info im about to drop on you:

So, all of my OCs were centered around this one OC I named “Shara Finan”

The first words I created in my little abomination of a language that weren’t bastardized alphabet-to-number-coded english!

Yep, that lovely creation of mine is actually the language she speaks lol. But that is still not the point, the point is im going to drop on you the cultural stuff behind her name.

Her name basically means “good omen” “good things are going to happen” “good future” etc

But it translates directly into english as “Red(fem) of End(fem Complicated Term)”

Red of Ending

(The Complicated Term is basically: “Im making a point to say that I’m not available for a romantic relationship.” Alr in a relationship and monogamous, aro, ace, aroace; it applies in a variety of ways.

The fem part is also specified there, but it doesn’t have to be: the gender neutral term is un, as in noon. Basically the abomination CAN be gendered but only if you specifically want it to be. I made so many pronouns guys. 5th grade me had just discovered that there are, in fact, other genders and decided english did not have enough pronouns. Not that i was wrong, but maybe it was weird that I decided all children use the “ee” sound and don’t use gender-specific terms until they “come of age”

U, E, O, A: all letters that may or may not signify a gender. I am the only one that could ever know this language because its rules are so weird but i cant bring myself to get rid of them bc im attached)

For context:

“Shar” means red

“A” is both for the fem indicator and for the word “of” which isn’t really a word and more something that gets ADDED to a word that’s alr there. Because there’s two “uh” sounds they get squished together

(yeah i know i spelled it weird—in english—because maybe i shouldve put a u, but in my defense i also don’t use english letters for this. There are way more letters than 26. Forget vowels and consonants i like to divide them by how hard/sharp and soft they are, not that that has any effect whatsoever on the grammar…mostly)

“Fin” translates to end. I think you can tell where I stole that from lol

“An”—or rather, the feminine form of “un”

(which also has a homophone/homonym that translates to one, because i’m evil. Luckily if it doesn’t have a harder sound in front of it, L gets added.)

I actually just told you what this means but I’ll tell you again: it means that the person you are referring to this with is specifically making the point with this term that they are “unavailable for a romantic relationship or anything resembling it” Are they aroace? Married? Who knows! Not you, unless they tell you. None of your business. 5th grade me had Opinions and was very much afraid to share them.

________

Alright now that im through all of the background—oh, you thought I was done? No that was all just context for why im telling you this. “This” being “why her name means all those good things when it sounds dark”

And well, it would be dark if i used “sher” (as in share) instead of “shar”, but im getting off-track again.

so, in this OC’s, Shara Finan’s, world, there is a specific plant that has been cultivated to provide extra food during the winter. But it doesn’t always bloom, and when that happens, the winter tends to be lean—and the rest of the year isn’t too great either. They use the plant for more things than just food: medicine, for example. Although they’re mostly based off of dandelions and carrots (kinda) but *Winter*, I based them a bit off of poplar buds: they have antiseptic properties.

If they will bloom that year, they begin to do so during the last few days of fall. They look like red dandelions blooming off of a bush at first. In their stems, theres the resin that contains antiseptic properties. The leaves, and later, the roots, can be harvested for food. When the stems haven’t been split for access to the resin early in their lifetimes, they harden into a flexible woody material, used for making baskets and other odds and ends.

The word “shar” refers to the specific shade of red of the end-of-fall flowers. (nicknamed The Good Flowers lol. Benae Falurae’za.)

So yeah, here you go, have an infodump partly on an old ocs name and partly on an aspect of my pride-and-abomination

#Infodump #made up languages #language #fictional language #worldbuilding #does this count as worldbuilding? #Eh i think it does #My abomination (affectionate) of a language

[shipandrunforit]

Do y’all think Belos purposely gave hunter that notch on his ear and scar just so he would look a bit less like his brother? Cause he said he looked a lot like him so…maybe? Probably nothing but I’m tunneling further down this rabbit hole and cannot stop myself.

So here’s some other things my brain is brining up

The fact that Darius was sad when Hunter was proclaimed golden guard. Why? Was it because it was so soon after his mentors death, or because he knows what happening and what hunter is bc if his previous mentor was the old golden guard then maybe he told Darius everything before he died.

Meaning Darius knows all about what hunter is and what his fate is going to be.

Raine somehow found the time to get Eda flowers and put the potion in the flowers and have them do that effect thingy and make a note for her.

Don’t know how they did it, but they did. They also was able to run away from the door without being spotted, well it might have been them, it was to hard to see the figure

We get to see a lot of Phillip and his brothers history from background images in this episode. Granted a lot of them are without context or the right order but using what we know about things we can kind of piece tigger a timeline. That time line being

Phillip and his brother were close

Phillip and his brother founded the town Luz lives in

They go to the Boiling Illes

Phillip is weary and discussed but has an interest in the magic

Phillips brother loves this new world and possibly falls in love with a witch

This is where things get muddled

There is a falling out with the brothers

A mishap with magic occurs and Phillip gets cursed

What we know for sure is that Phillip views his brother action as betraying him and starts making Grim walkers while working on the draining spell

The last portion we know happens after luz, or at least the mass propaganda part, because we see Phillip working with what we now know to be a grimwalker

Because that’s what all of the previous Golden Guards were, clones of his dead brother

We still don’t know why he made them exactly, maybe he wanted a version of his brother with him-one that was loyal and wouldn’t betray him like the original did-or maybe it was because a small part of him still cares for his brother and wants him around.

Especially for the day of unity

Also apparently those palismen have souls

And belos are them twice now

Which is horrifying because he seemed very excited/glad to have done it

Also I for real thought that Hunter was going to be stuck in Phillips mind and just be a voice in the back of his head forever

Would have been a horrible ending for him but luckily he used wild magic

The very thing he had been persistent on not using

But was super cool with researching and Ohmygosh this boy alsmot died

Luz almost died

They both almost died in someone else’s head and Eda would have had to live with the fact that she wasn’t able to save her in time and that if they ever did make a portal to the human realm she would have to tell Luz mother that she died and Luz mom would get mad at her or something because Luz mom-Just remembered her name is Carmella-Carmella made her promise to come home and stay out

Holly crap Amity almost lost her girlfriend

How is everyone else going to react to this

And who’s going to check on hunter

Might be Willow and the rest of the Emerald entrails. Might be Darius, hell it might even be the fu kind Bat Queen. Haven’t seen her in this part of the season yet, but someone needs to do it because while I love flapjack-which is his official name-they said it in the show now-he is not going to be enough to help hunter through this

He didn’t even react when he tried to talk to him

Also Darius almost had a dad moment. Really wish I know what those three were saying during those silent moments.

I imagine they were kind of mad at Darius for dropping the bottle

Cause that’s what caused this in the first place

Also apparently someone was onro the rebels because Hunter had to learn about this from someone and I’m curious to see who

And who will replace him

Might be Kiki, but I don’t know

Either way this has gone on for a while and my had is starting to hurt

So in the words of our dear boy Hunter

BYEEEEE

#owl house #owl house spoilers #Hunter #hunter owl house #luz owl house #luz the human #eda owl house #eda clawthorne #darius #raine whispers #raine owl house #angst #hollow mind #hollow mind spoilers