Years after Vecna, when scars have healed and people have moved far and wide, Steve goes and visits Eddie. It's not the first time, not even close. Between acting like Dustin was their child and passing him off to each other like two divorced parents on each other's weekends and just wanting to talk again, they've actually gotten close. Eddie is the second person Steve calls when something happens, sometimes the first - only because he and Robin are roommates in their small apartment together, if they weren't Eddie would still be the second.
Steve's just cooking for his best guy friend that he may or may not be in love with, right? Nothing strange that Eddie is hiding, right? Wrong. Out of nowhere, Steve hears a meow and something - he assumes a cat - comes hurtling full force at his head, knocking him back slightly and digging its tiny claws into his forehead. "Shit- Eddie what the fuck!?" Steve shouts, flailing like a maniac to get the small cat off his head. "Ozzy, no! Bad!" Eddie says, picking up the cat by under its front two arms.
"Did you just throw a cat at my head!?" Steve says, wiping the tiny droplet of blood off of his forehead that bloomed there. Steve glares at the tiny culprit who Eddie is...cuddling. And cooing to.
"Tha's a bad boyy. You hurt the Stevie" Eddie whispers in between kisses to the Ozzy's soft forehead. "No, I didn't throw my cat at you. He just likes to climb and you're very climbable. He probably just jumped off the fridge" Eddie says, barely even looking up to see Steve's bewilderment. Steve shakes his head and returns to the food before it burns. "I'm in love with that." Steve whispers under his breath with a huff. Though he's sure he only thinks it, Eddie's head perks up.
"Aw, see Ozzy, he loves you even when you gave him a fourth concussion!" Eddie says, smiling widely. Steve, who had frozen up the second Eddie spoke, unclenches every muscle. "Yeah. Yep. Mhm." He says quickly. A little too quickly. But Eddie doesn't say anything more.
Eddie finally sets the poor Ozzy free and slinks up behind Steve, giving him a quick peck on the cheek as if they do this every day. "I know you meant me, sunshine" Eddie teases before snatching up some of the food and bolting, leaving Steve absolutely dumbfounded.
[Image ID: a digital watercolor illustration, fanart for the game Disco Elysium. The image feels somewhat isolating, the majority of it filled only with a blue sky, nearly empty save for some sparse clouds, plus musical notes floating around two lines, swirling downward together to visually imply whistled tunes. The thicker line is a simple, swaying dark green trail—the other, a dark orange that loops around it in a thin, twisting melody. The lines end above Harry and Kim, who are sitting on an old, rusted swingset, staring out at a car half-sunk into the icy sea before them. They are viewed from behind, near a sparsely-leafed tree in the blurry foreground. The colors around the edges of the image all fade into a soft, Pale grey, which in turn becomes wispy and transparent.]
DRAMA - The tune on your lips forms a strange, yet undeniably beautiful contrast with the surrounding bleakness.
KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant gives you a quick glance. Then, still looking straight ahead, he joins you with a higher-pitched and slightly more melodic trill.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - Two birds on a wire, whistling by the seaside. Looking at the water. And a sunken car.
🎵 Want to be free
Burn, baby, burn
🎶 And the trees are green and overhanging
Feather-light, free, and everlasting
Doing a bit more watercolor experimentation in Rebelle, trying to wrangle water physics. The description of this scene stuck in my brain—because unless they both knew the song, you don't "just" casually, spontaneously harmonize with someone. They're either both very good with musical improv, and/or so ~in tune~ (hehe) with each other that it Just Works. (Which, yes, it's a symbolic story element of how Kim is perfect good at being adaptably exactly what's needed, a parallel to that one trust exercise idle they do.)
Either way, this struck my brain with the idea of using swirling lines (as ya do) to visualize the song as being the most solid and "real" thing, in what would mostly be isolating, empty sky. Everything else is watercolor (with ink lineart and airbrushed fog)—transient, transparent, and taking on the texture of the canvas—but the "song" was done in solid, opaque pencil.
ARE Y'ALL FUCKIN READY FOR THIS THING I MADE THAT I WANNA MAKE YOU WATCH
Prepare to be....well....not overwhelmed. Not underwhelmed...more....Satisfactorilywhelmed *drum roll* My first traditionally 2d animated short is done (well. Done enough. Not perfect but it's just an informal practice thing so you know what it's fine for that 🙃) BEHOLD
Sound on for questionable quality keyboard noises
So yeah this is a little experiment I churned out in a month of neglecting other more important projects....it's supposed to be like.....the feeling of slumping into burnout and then the ups and downs of trying to get out of it? does it make sense...?
But yeah basically it's traditional animation - like ink and paint on cels and composited and scanned manually bc it annoys me the mainstream has decided this is an obsolete art form and I'm protesty about it because IT'S ART IT DOESNT BECOME OBSOLETE BC PROGRAMS EXIST DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT 200 DOLLARS. I did cheat a little and digitally cut the water and copy-pasted it onto some frames but that's because I could find ONE TRANSPARENT BLUE SHEET IN THE ENTIRE METROPOLITAN AREA I SHIT YOU NOT. and I didn't want to cut my only precious water sheet in case something went wrong or I had to redo a shot. But everything else is pretty manual. Also the music is op 76 no 2 by Sibelius - ATTEMPTED 🙃. Sorry some notes are just SO QUIET but it's good enough it's whatever. My level of piano skill is like. Not professional by any stretch of the imagination and this is good enough for me
Oh and backgrounds are generally various kinds of charcoal with ink
anyway hope you at least found my project interesting thanks for watching
(actually not to make it weird but my whole life has led up to me trying this and I blame Joe Murray for making me want to be an animator when I was a little kid and I always wanted to try this kind and now I finally had the time and money and enough drawing skills to try it so yeah it's not like fuckin Disney or whatever but I am happy I got to make it exist. feels like I checked a thing off my bucket list)
Me, fighting tooth and nail against my irl friends who are sw*fties: yeah well, maybe I want my sad girl music to have a 3 minute guitar solo and distorted audio after the second verse of vaguely gay lyrics have you considered that ?!
Some hithero unseen photos from Phantom of the Opera in Kristianstad, Sweden. Featuring Joel Zerpe (?) as the Phantom, Sara Ollinen as Christine and Anna Hammarqvist as Carlotta ( from here )
YES I DO THINK. i hc that skully has their own rlly weird music taste however if you play a song one of the many loved they would feel feelings abt it. if you throw a bass at them they could pluck out something.