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waitmyturtles · 11 months

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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Dew the Movie Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover Dew the Movie, screenwritten and directed by the seminal Thai BL artist, Ma-Deaw Chookiat, and starring Ohm Pawat and Nont Sadanont.]

Before I get started, I want to note that I’m publishing this review out of chronological order from the list: I owe you all a review of 3 Will Be Free, which will drop next week, but I just watched Dew the Movie this week, and felt the strong urge to get out my thoughts sooner rather than later.

Why?

I have had a number of quick conversations about Dew the Movie with some of the around-the-block mentors on Tumblr, particularly with @absolutebl Sensei, who very kindly answered my question last week about where Dew stands by way of the trajectory of BL in Thailand (and just to note, as ABL Sensei says in their answer: Dew is most definitely NOT a BL, but an important piece of queer media to consider for the BL-driven OGMMTVC).

The (small sample size) majority of people I’ve spoken to about Dew have actually not seen it, which is utterly understandable from the perspective of the tragic circumstances of the film.

When I first planned on watching it, I put a caveat note on the OGMMTVC list on my blog’s pinned post that Dew wasn’t an official part of the Challenge. I change my tune on this: I would argue, at least from my perspective, that it was a *must for me* to watch.

Again, why?

As ABL Sensei writes, Dew fits into a stage-checklist mold of queer cinema, where, at the time of its release, it potentially NEEDED to check off certain boxes in order to get produced. It very well may have NEEDED a tragic end (arguably, multiple tragic ends) to get made. It may have NEEDED to kill off a gay character (arguably, multiple gay characters) to be ripe for consumption by a wider audience. It may have NEEDED some amount of equivocating about those deaths within the art itself.

I was aware of this when I was watching Dew, aware of watching Brokeback Mountain again, aware of death and disappearance and erasure.

What I didn’t expect from Dew, possibly as strong a punch in the gut as the impact of the death(s) themselves, was how Asian the movie was.

This sounds silly, coming from an Asian-American towards a Thai movie made in Thailand, about Thai young men, as based on an original story from South Korea. But having visited Malaysia, one of my home countries, a whole bunch in the 1990s, at the same time when half of this film was situated -- I was absolutely struck by how the film did not shy away from the Asian experience of discrimination and the destruction of Asian family systems by way of homophobia and other explicit biases throughout the film.

The depictions of homophobia and discrimination in Dew were so raw that I caught myself actually gasping-crying at certain points. Before I get there, let me offer a quick summary of the film, since I believe not very many people have seen this:

Dew and Phop are two high school classmates in the late 1990s, in an extremely rural town called Pang Noi, adjacent to Chiang Rai. As the wonderful @shortpplfedup kindly noted for me, the timing of Dew and Phop’s engagement took place right before the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis that first emanated out of Thailand, and was also set as military dictatorships had given way to democracy in Thailand.

In their rural town, young men who are either out or presumed to be gay are sent to training camps. Accusations about the spread of AIDS are made vis à vis the LGBTQ+ population. Students who are out are rejected at school and in their homes.

I’ve written previously about how certain BLs, mainly in the MAME realm (Love By Chance and TharnType), have touched upon a kind of bigotry and bias that I have described as being particularly Asian in nature, reflective, word-for-word, of the kind discriminatory language and ideas that I was exposed to as a kid from my Asian parents.

To see that kind of discrimination and homophobia orchestrated on a community-based level -- in Dew and Phop’s school, when children are rounded up by teachers and soldiers to be sent to a training camp -- was brutal to watch.

It immediately introduced a level of dystopia to the entire film. And I ended up appreciating that the film went that far, so immediately at the beginning of the film, after we had seen an otherwise happy-go-lucky young man in Dew beginning to engage with Phop.

We needed that element of dystopia to kick off the film, because: Dew faces rejection from his school and, potentially, from his single mother, to be an out and gay young man in Pang Noi.

More brutally, arguably, is the rejection of Phop from his EXTREMELY patriarchal Thai-Chinese family, led by an almost despotic father, who is ready to take down his son at a moment’s notice, with a helpless mother present as Phop is progressively rejected by his father, his brothers, and the patriarchal family system that keeps that family together. (@shortpplfedup, as I wrote to you, this was Double Savage x 10, maybe x 100.)

The reason why I liked the juxtaposition of the community-level discrimination vs. the micro, family-level discrimination is that both experiences of this kind of discrimination are dystopic. As humans, as mammals: we crave community, family, and companionship.

To be rejected by your community is unnatural. To be rejected by your FAMILY is unnatural.

This is not a message that’s limited to Asian media or Asian cultures -- this exact kind of discrimination flourishes in America and elsewhere, including conversion therapy (Dew reveals that his own mother sent him to behavioral therapy). In rural Thailand, this kind of existence... simply cannot exist. That’s dystopic to queerness, to the LGBTQ+ community.

I brought up Malaysia earlier to make a quick mindset comparison. Around the time of the setting of Dew and Phop’s high school days, I remember hearing on Malaysian radio, riding in a car with my family, that the singer Sting (STING, y’all -- vanilla STING) had been banned from performing in Malaysia for his music being “too rhythmic.”

Malaysia, unlike Thailand, is an Islamic nation. But borders are only lines on a map, and as I’ve spoken at length with the amazing @telomeke about, the cultural flow between the countries is strong and present. It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, that rural Thai towns WOULD engage in this HIGH LEVEL of discrimination and exclusion, as unbelievable as it might seem to Westerns not familiar with either Asian or Western styles of dystopic discrimination, as I’m calling it here.

To try to survive: Phop runs away to Bangkok. And begs Dew to come with him. And Dew dies in the process.

Phop lives. He becomes an adult, a middling adult, with only middling success in his life. After a life in Bangkok, he moves back to Pang Noi, broke, married, reminiscing about Dew.

And he discovers, after becoming a homeroom teacher, that Dew has been reincarnated in the body of a young female student. (This is one of a few times that ideas of ghosts, spirits, the reborn, and the reincarnated are introduced in queer Thai media in 2019, along with Until We Meet Again and He’s Coming To Me.)

We then get the presence of an actual controversial filmmaking trope in age gap, between a young student and an older teacher. Age gap is certainly a present trope in BLs, past and present.

In lightly peeping the MDL reviews for Dew, I saw quite a bit of consternation about this age gap, and honestly, as a mom, I certainly felt the wibbles as well. But I thought it was an interesting filmmaking device to use, in putting Dew’s spirit in the body of a young student.

Because -- of course -- this inclusion forces us viewers to confront OUR OWN BIASES. Besides the community-level and micro/family-level discrimination we see in the film, we’re also forced to truly dig into what we, as viewers, are biased against. AND, the film very much digs into the controversial nature of teacher-student relationships as well, and Phop is condemned for his closeness with the reincarnated Dew through the student, Liu, wonderfully acted by Pahn Riety of 10 Years Ticket.

This film is fucking brutal. But the fact that it forces us to CONFRONT OUR BIASES, on so many levels -- it does a wonderful job at that.

To the end. To the end of the loss of Phop and Liu, so that Phop and Dew can be together in the afterlife.

The film leans on Thai-Chinese Buddhism in the second half, again, so reminiscent of He’s Coming To Me, leading to ANOTHER non-happy ending that brings two people together in unideal circumstances. Phop and Dew’s spirits will be together, not in this world, but where, exactly? Certainly not in the world of 1990s rural Thailand, a world that wanted them extinct.

When I say that this film is rooted in its Asianness, I really mean it. I think one needs to have an appreciation for how these themes tie together -- the community-level discrimination, how general sexuality and queerness were treated with such a hands-off/ignoring approach in the SEA region in the 1990s, and why Thai-Chinese Buddhism was chosen as a means of bringing Phop and Dew back together, just like Thun and Med in HCTM. There is an acknowledgement by the Asian filmmakers of these pieces that queerness was brutally unacceptable during these times in Thailand and elsewhere, and these pieces do not shy away from that reality.

I’m tremendously glad I watched this. I feel like crying right now while watching this, but I’m really glad, as someone with SEA roots, to have watched this, and to have seen discrimination at that level that I have seen previously, and to know it exists. If one takes up the OGMMTVC and feels like they can’t watch this, I can totally understand. But I think Dew the Movie is a tremendous gateway -- as He’s Coming To Me was -- to a very particular Asian mindset around collectivist living that does not jive with individual expressions of sexuality and queer acceptance.

Those realities are brutal -- I hate thinking about them, I HATE IT. The acceptance gateway that I have discovered vis à vis Thai QLs is a salve to my soul that was subjected to HEINOUS discrimination against ANYONE deemed different from my Indian culture growing up. But that discrimination was also VERY REAL. I’ve broken out of being exposed to it, and I’ve tried to become the best ally I can be. But the acknowledgement, through art, that that level of discrimination can exist, in my Asian cultures, is also a reality that I have a responsibility, as an ally of Asian descent, to reckon with.

(A quick side-note. Once more: Ohm Pawat shines. This man is a CIPHER of queer pain and queer joy. The acting, directing, and cinematography of this film was stunning. Two hours went by in a flash. If you avoid for the content, that makes sense, but if you’re a film buff, you may enjoy this film just for the devotion it pays to rural Thailand and the spectacular expanses that it captures.)

[Yow. My heart is aching, not just for Dew the Movie, but I’m also recovering from a crazy week of Step By Step, HA.

But anyway: my review of 3 Will Be Free will be up early next week. WHAT A GODDAMN AMAZING SHOW! The OGMMTVC is definitely ruining me for great content, up against what I’m watching that’s airing now (....side-eyes to SBS, hmph).

And: I’m digging into Until We Meet Again. IT’S FABULOUS SO FAR. Come AWN, Fluke and all of ‘em! I’m traveling for the holiday next week, but hopefully my watch schedule won’t get too messed up. But with this review of Dew and 3WBF next week, I’m holding all y’all down if you’re looking forward to these reviews!

Here’s the status of the watchlist. As ever, I’ll take any feedback ya got!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review coming) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (watching) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 26) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 27) Not Me (2021-2022) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

#dew the movie #dew #dew the movie meta #phop x dew #dew x phop #ohm pawat #nont sadanont #pahn riety #age gap bl #homophobia in bl #discrimination in BLs #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #turtles catches up with thai BLs #turtles catches up with the essential BLs #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc

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pojacket · 1 month

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Hey, what day is it?

(That’s what they’re dancing too, maybe)

FNF Free Download turns 2 years old 1 minute after this post! (scheduled at 11:59.) That’s old enough for babies to talk, good job free download! But thank you to Tyler and Funne for creating such an inspiring game! This felt like something that could only exist in my dreams (in a good way) from the humor, the art, the characters, the music…it all just resonated with me and so many other people. Once Girl next door got to the dance break, THERE WAS NO TURNING BACK. I’m also thankful to be apart of the free download community. I don’t really interact with communities that much so free download is kinda a first for me. But everyone there is super cool and seeing people talk about the game is always great. And making art for free download made me a lot better at art too! Well…as good as you can get when you don’t look at tutorials…

Strad and his lover are dancing in the stars :) Lady’s mom doesn’t have official colors, so I had to make my own. Hopefully they fit her well. It’d probably make more sense to do a big group piece where everyone is together but I wanna put some attention to Strad! After all, April 1st is also Weeknd 1’s anniversary (and I’m not saying this because I didn’t have enough time to make a big group piece whaaat nooo) I was supposed to post this for the anniversary but I forgot it even existed:

LeoLuster posted his anniversary artwork too, check it out! https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/leoluster214/happy-2nd-birthday-fnffd

Well, that’s the end of the blog. Since you’ve read this far, here’s Charlie balling.

Remember, no matter what life throws at you, stay calm.

AND DRINK WATER.

#fnffd #fnffreedownload #drawings #ramblings #Spotify

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eliyips · 7 months

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HI HELLO

First of all

*eating your X design for breakfast*

Amazing, beautiful, perfectly dork shaped, love it. (and I did not go though your blog and read every single post you made about him and his design and why you draw him the way you draw, you are imagining things surely/sarcasm)

Secondly AMMA STEAL IT. And Use It. And maybe add some of mine, but DEMN you did sooo good, that's like canon in my head now!

And third thing... You rebuild a part of the dungeon. For a drawing?? And Then painted over it??????? That's insane!!! You are insane??? I mean huge respect, That kind of dedication.... woah

And last thing: *om nom noms all of your art, why so tasty*

HELLO HI :D

Ahhh thank you for the very kind message!!! always makes me so happy to hear that people like my Xisuma design <3 absolutely feel free to steal him, I'm flattered to have people taking inspiration from my designs!

YES, I did rebuild a tiny piece of Decked Out for my drawing! It may sound a little off the walls, but i promise you, it was 100% necessary. /sarcasm

Seriously though, even if it was a bit extra, it was actually pretty easy to build the set, all considered - only took maybe an hour? I wasn't stressed about getting every detail right, so it was honestly pretty relaxing! And I think it was totally worth it for the result I got :D Here's a couple other angles of the set, to give you an idea of what all I did (ft. me, cosplaying as Xisuma)

Honestly, the most difficult part about this was figuring out the lighting! I ended up breaking a hole in the wall I had built around it, to allow the moonlight to illuminate the set, and get that nice blue glow. I had originally planned to use soul lanterns for the blue light, but soul lanterns / campfires glow orange instead of blue in all the shaders I found and liked :')

I took these screenshots with Sidurs Vibrant Shaders. I tried Kappa as well, for the colored lighting, but was pretty dissatisfied with it, besides the colored lights. I usually use BSL Shaders when playing, but I felt like the more saturated look of Sidurs was more appropriate here! :)

Here's something I didn't mention about the screenshots in the original post: something which was super helpful while drawing was having these screenshots of Tango and Xisuma's skins, taken in the same spot on the set where I planned to draw them. It gave me a really good reference point for the base colors, though of course, i had to adjust somewhat to better fit my designs for them :) Makes me curious what I could do if made versions of these skins that better matched my designs. Could be super useful for color reference in future drawings!

Anyways, thanks again for your very kind message!!! <3 hope that my rambling about Minecraft screenshots was of interest :D

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #mcyt #xisumavoid #xisuma #character design #tango #tangotek #art process #askeliyips #cosplaying xisuma who himself is cosplaying doomguy #call that cosplay-ception

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s-arrynight · 10 months

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UH are we allowed to ask you questions? Cause I have questions on. The Sillies. (Kinjo and Yuki) Like what are your thoughts on their ship? I see you draw Kinjo with DRA Yuki and the real Yuki and I want to know what you actually think about them.. feel free to go off about it but if not you can just delete this hdshhsd

oh yes of course!!! and i do wanna talk about it, gosh i really haven't elaborated my piece about them yet since this is an art blog n i felt a little annoying when i blow up a tag, THANK YOU!! !!!

I also don't see many people talk about post-sdra2 either. this take, im gonna be minty fresh

kinjomae analysis

DRA Yuki

Canon-speaking, Kinjomae was deliberately called back to in both games. Tsurugi fills the role of the queer survivor in dra the way that Yoruko blatantly does in sdra2 (and the protagonist dies) except, it's less obvious as a main couple because of the way linuj writes, and it also doesn't fit the way some people see stereotyped mlm characters.

Kinjo's entire life is a trauma that is so oriented on staying alone, being alone in his suffering and his profession. He particularly killed the men closest to him, (Teruya, Kouhei, threatening Utsuro, and even his father) and seeing those people die around him leaves him numb. I feel like the Yuki of the first game is another unhealthy contributor to the sad cycle of his life, but ALSO remains to be his biggest savior. Kinjo and Akane are the only characters of DRA to have both 5 free-times, their bond has always been THAT highlight level of important.

DRA Yuki tears into this unhealthy string of Tsurugi's life by literally preventing the one time he felt alone the most. In Yuki's perspective, Tsurugi is such a strong figure but still trusting himself to lean on him, it solidifies both of them and forces them to develop their situations even when Utsuro rips through the Yuki facade. They were partners in crime unknowing that one of them was a criminal, omg, they were the dear rabbit, the along came a spider, the jane and john doe,,,

Tsurugi mentions he can't trust anybody but Yuki, Tsurugi gives Yuki a pass at trying to murder him despite his rigid moral. (not without a punch or two, but impressive.) and when Yuki is on the outsides he is the connected peacekeeper to Kinjo VS. Everyone Else. They are there to hold eachother's hands so they can still reconnect onto the border of the group. Like, the way Yuki shouts main character philosophy in chapter 4 at him while he's fighting everyone else brutally at the dinner table, and once again in chapter 6.

(Teruya, then fulfils this goal of reparation with Rei after they leave the killing game, but not on the mental stability side.) Tsurugi is seemingly independant and incredibly uncontrollable due to his detachment, and yet Yuki is able to have a significant part of influence over his life; as well as the deceased Kisaragi pre-killing game.

Yuki IS and will always be the exception to him and no matter how hard he tries to escape it, it follows him till the remainder of his character arc. In the same way, Tsurugi was the kickstarter to Utsuro's new mindset too. It's the "You can't pull the trigger cause you love me", cause that's what Utsuro-Yuki is to Tsurugi. Utsuro may be the most vile villain in the world to somebody who even considered assisted self defense to be a crime on first thought, and then he STILL proceeded to not take that final shot. He didn't hesitate blowing Mikado up, who arguably wasn't the first source of despair.

anyways i think dra yuki-utsuro/tsurugi are integral, important, and good to know your hizstory

he wants me i want him, we went out, then we (YukiUtsuro) DIED!! /ref

Yuki

Tsurugi would move on to be the worst man to cope in the existence of the franchise, and probably hardly ever move on after the death of DRA Yuki. If Yuki was truly dead he'd have two funerals for his two guypals, and spit on Utsuro's grave pretending not to like him. Plus that bad ending where Tsurugi just wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweat shows what would sort of happen, he thinks about them too much. However,

Yuki was still a concept of a person who existed in the world. He's not gone, he's just someone in a different form, and still is inside the memory of Kinjo's mind that remains deteriorating. He's like, the same dude but he's in the clutches of EVIL!! and he hates evil. (Kinjo seems to catch onto Mikado's plans early on and then it only amplifies in his duty to stop Utsuro and find Yuki.)

Tsurugi's defeatist attitude to fail saving Teruya and Yuki was very much a falsetto because of the Omake 2 and I truly believe Rei was right that this was their agreed purpose.

The real Yuki has none of these shared moments that Tsurugi can look back on together, but if it was just the memories he wouldn't have acted so patronizing to Utsuro. He's affectionately looking back on the person that Utsuro was, which was just Yuki Maeda. Did Homura Akemi decide to go back in time for 10 years just so Madoka could share moments with her?? Absolutely not, and the same goes for Tsurugi Kinjo, who ran an entire organization which later adopted the name of the goal. As Mikado joked, it's "the love of your life" but it's in the most unconventional messy, dictatorial, and murderous way.

Kinjomae absolutely drives the narrative forward on Yuki's side of the story even if it's significantly relegated mostly to the end. Imagine your entire existence leaning on a few people you can't even remember, but they remember you? One dude sacrifices a guy, one girl sacrifices her body. With Tsurugi's final decrees of (semi) unconditional care for you, you finish the trial with this one-sided trauma bond and a promise to keep the survivors safe. Sora takes on all the karmic debt of Divine Luck, and peace returns in an ending that isn't really elaborated on.

ur now a fugitive awesome trans guyboss with superpowers, and you're just absolutely bawling out of your mind at this point. some blue haired dude in a wheelchair is going to die if you don't help him out with your sora-luck.

nobody talks about this enough but this is THE PERFECT set-up for a postgame friendship to develop, not only are they both survivors, this is the genuine Yuki who isn't hiding apart of an Utsuro disguise. He's alive but now in the body of someone Kinjo despised,,, he hates Akane, he refuses to acknowledge her. he loves yuki. But Yuki remembers her fondly and has to take care of the body, but he probably hates himself. not to mention the INTENSE guilt you would get from feeling anything in it or the dysphoria of even wearing/not wearing the clothes she is??? sdra2 so evil?? soruko died so kinjomae could slowburn.

There's nothing Yuki can do now but go on his quest to potentially get along with this man who is homo-erotically trauma bonded to him and got a whole-ass person killed in the process of ending Utsuro and finding the true Maeda., He also has to go atone to Yoruko and the rest of the gang. as you can see i like kinjomae i think they are a foundational element in the story of dra.

unrelated thinking

their suits are completely black and white i find that silly they match

my partner and i did a voiceover of their final freetime one time cause we were feeling quirky.

youtube

#kinjomae #sdra2 #danganronpa another #kites blog

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watcher-comic · 6 months

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okay hi

did i promise to make an art... lore dump post literally last month? yes. did i not do it for nearly a month? also yes. and im Very Sorry.

anyway! onto the ranting

So starting off with the obvious, Nanehi's color scheme is based off of the Shawnee tribe's flag!

Obviously more desaturated, but the blue sweater and two yellow stars were meant to show that he's native.

Alright, going in page order I'm just gonna throw around some easter eggs or fun facts or commentary...whatever....

Because this is the only good image I can find of it, Nane wears his parents' wedding bands on a necklace. Because his parents are divorced </3

On page 2, Nane has a poster up on his wall which is my current sketchbook cover in my art class. I believe it's somewhere on my art blog

Nane has a ziptie on his backpack! It doesn't mean anything.

Page 6: The white text that says "what?" is actually a reference to the first debut of Nane - an askblog!

(technically his first word was "huh" but i changed it to what for plot's sake)

Continuing with the black spaces on page 6, the panicked eye doesn't really mean anything. However, the twisted light switch was supposed to represent the noose that shows up at the end of the comic.

For page 7, there's obviously the audience design to talk about, but the things I actually wanna focus on are:

The doodle on the top left, which is Nanehi saying that he thinks he has tinnitus [which he then goes on to immediately deny in the next page]

And the doodle on the bottom right. His fursona is a bunny and if I could, I would've tried to fit more bunny imagery into the comic. But alas :pensive:

Page 13: All the different colored text were the responses I got from a select few people. I showed them the previous panels of the page and asked them what they wanted [there is one distinct person I didn't ask but I will get to them later].

I also want you to keep the... 3rd shade of green in mind [the "i want to see where this goes"]

For this panel on page 15, I wanted it to be known that Nanehi isn't a real person, and they know it. Everyone else's face is squared, even the simply doodled character in the background and the barely visible person in the foreground. Everyone except Nane.

Page 16: Man that's just mold on his shower curtain.

Page 17: There's actually a lot I want to talk about with page 17. Firstly, the design of The Audience. It changed, clearly. Before it was that weird circle thing, but now it's more humanoid - to the point of having hair similar to Nanehi's. The reason being, it's not entirely The Audience anymore. It's The Creator too. Nanehi was based off my fear of being watched and constantly having an audience. The little amount of comfort that the figure gives was... sorta supposed to be an apology to the character- as cheesy as that sounds.

(Also the fact that their text originally said "didn't they already answer that" but was crossed out to say 'we'. The Creator disguising themself as The Audience. And truly, what is to separate them?)

Another thing I want to point out is the dark grey panel. It's the same shade of grey I used for the askblog, and he's smiling in that panel, because during the askblog he was much happier around the audience- or the concept of them, rather.

And then of course, the dark blue text that reads "I know how this ends." That actually wasn't a response I took from someone, but rather a piece of... I guess dialogue, that I felt like someone would say. That specific someone being my friend Classi, who was the only person besides me that knew how Watcher ended. Purely because she had a very similar character and we thought that they'd be buddies.

On page 18, we have 3 entire panels in a different style. That being the style of the askblog.

(some examples)(the last image is where the avatar came from, haha)

On page 19 we have this panel, which you can probably assume what it is. It, I suppose, could both be seen as Nane standing, back to the audience, or as Nane hanging without the noose. You choose.

And of course, the last page. For some reason this fucks me up. Because this is The Creator talking to Nanehi. The Creator knows that Nane has no say in how their story ends, but they're given the illusion of control, because that's all they've been looking for. They wanted control over something, so the only way to prove such control was to show The Audience that they could end the story whenever they wanted. He doesn't know that he was talking to The Creator, he just assumed it was still The Audience. He doesn't know that he didn't really have a say.

This was what he wanted. That's how he's ending the story

#watcher comic #directors commentary #uhhhhh #yeah i think thats everything?#idk i'll probably add more later

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lunarw0rks · 7 months

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this is so embarrassing but like - I'd really like to get into fanfic writing and stuff like that!! But I'm worried that I'll make the characters too ooc, and the last thing I want to do is just completely misinterpret them and take away their key personality traits. I guess I'm just wondering if you have any tips? Or what you do to get over the anxiety of posting? I really love your work!! 💗

i think you should go for it, one hundred percent 🫶

write your ideas, no matter what they are. as long as you tag properly and show effort—someone will love your work. posting seems daunting, and trust me, i totally understand the anxiety of putting yourself out there. but you're not alone; me and every single fanfic writer has felt that way, i'm sure.

but y'know what? who cares about judgment. writing is an art form, whether it's silly cod drabbles or Shakespearean plays. if you feel passionate enough to spend precious time writing, tuning, and brainstorming a piece—you deserve to have it be seen, no matter how "small" the audience is. and that's one of the few things i enjoy about tumblr; there's a post/blog for everyone!

focus on the writing that keeps it a fun hobby, always. be mindful of what your followers want/enjoy but remember that you're doing this for free!! basically what i'm saying is, you have to push yourself and hit post. it might be a slow burn, or you'll be a lucky one and have your first few posts blow up.

either way, you wrote something and were brave enough to share it with the internet (a very, very scary place. not to mention certain parts of this fandom).

as for tips on characterization, i heavily recommend you take inspiration from other media. watch your favorite show, read your favorite book — and think 'that fits ___ really well' or 'this character has a similar personality to __, i'll remember that for reference'. and don't be afraid to steal lines from the game/media and put it in your writing!! it's an underused easter egg that i love!!

i'm not sure if my advice makes sense. when it comes to what's ooc or not, i've always had a good mind for it—knowing what fits and doesn't, what is realistic or isn't. (and i'm by no means claiming that i'm a master at it. trust me, i'm not.) that might not be the case for you, and that's okay. strengths and weaknesses are what make art, art.

stick with your gut. don't be afraid to spend extra time re-working dialogue; you're on your own schedule, and it's better to like what you've written than rush it and not. remember that it's only fiction. and it's fiction that you are taking time out of your day to work on, might i add. at the end of the day, if you're tagging things properly and being respectful—who the fuck cares that you put price in a catsuit? or made gaz hate oranges? yeah, exactly.

i hope i didn't ramble too much for you, anon. and i apologize if this advice doesn't have a sliver of sense to it. I wish you the best of luck with writing & sharing your work. 💗💗💗

#writing advice #rachel speaks #not writing

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basedkikuenjoyer · 10 months

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I’m Saving My “Red” Puns

So, this one fell by the wayside. I saw Film Red in theatre and have always had...thoughts. But it was such a rollercoaster I needed to see it again before saying anything. That being a polite way of saying I needed a second viewing to get what the hell I was looking at. We’re not going to treat a movie as canon or even really talk too much about the full plot. I don’t care about that here. But...I’m still utterly puzzled by its existence. You have to understand, I cannot disentangle any thoughts about Film Red from the way I interpret Wano.

Could you? We weren’t heavy into the idea by then, but this blog was rolling before the details about Red came out. By the first post I already had some of these core kernels in mind. Bringing out the idea of Kiku as more of an actress, that she could spark something deeply atavistic in Luffy through Shanks/Makino, the light/dark theming and the parts of ourselves we hide. Using this as an opportunity to probe at Luffy’s mindset a bit more. How the hell do you think I felt seeing Uta after several months of thinking about that?

The One Piece films are in a weird place. Not canon and wouldn’t fit at all. Headcanon I say they’re exploits Usopp made up. But since Strong World we do tend to get a couple elements that are a gray area. Canon but likely won’t be used in the main story, maybe with a nudge or two at something to come. This Figarland Family and a strong hint it’s relevant to Shanks would be Red’s. That’s it, just a casual one-off line of dialogue. Said my piece on that, from what we’ve seen of it in canon it could lead to setting up Shanks with a similar background to Kiku/Izo. When you already have quiet potential set up there. But I do think some of these newer Film ____ movies serve another purpose. They’re not canon, but an echo of what’s going on in serialization at the time. Gold & Dressrosa’s parallels are the most blatant if you ask me, but Strong World, Z, & Stampede have all done it as well. There’s at least an element of like, the movie tracking with the mindset of current One Piece.

So does that mean I think Uta’s going to be super important? No, not at all. Just that she felt like priming the pump for things we were already looking at and where the story was going to go as Wano wound down. Cipher Pol & SWORD, Shanks and probing at his past. Those are things already paying off. But the big spotlight is on Uta. Who comes into the picture after I was already wondering about teasing out hidden sides of Luffy through another performer he’s been getting chummy with.

Now, what makes something like that soooo much weirder and less likely to be pure coincidence?

I love that every time I dig back into this I find out something bizarre about Art NUE. Remember Kikuhime? This time it’s drone footage of a massive stone structure. 30 tons of Luffy slugging the Nue. Of course, I’m bringing this up because of the Kiku doppelganger. Came about a year before Wano. Major non-canon echoes on either side of an entire arc spent cryptically in the background. That’s heckin’ strange...

Seriously. 30 TONS of stone for one part of this full exhibit where the local girl is a dead ringer for the local girl who dominates the first half of real Wano being Miss Cryptic the entire time. If I had to have brain rot about someone in this pirate epic, at least I get the girl who makes my conspiracy corkboard look halfway sane.

#one piece #film red #uta #art nue

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salemoleander · 1 year

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VERY interested in creator commentary for the 3rd life webweave (seriously one of the coolest things ive seen made in this fandom, its gorgeously edited AND very funny AND the quotes themselves are all knock-your-socks off material. That Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Line Holy Shit)

Okay so first off THANK YOU that's super kind! It's nerve-wracking posting graphic design that is reconstituted from other sources, bc I've seen it perceived as a 'lazy' or unskilled format, so this is really really encouraging to hear.

I am not a concise person, which is why this has taken so long! I realized as I was initially responding that I was trying to dive into three separate topics:

The actual process I follow, my tips + tricks on making web weaves

Analysis of my 3rd Life web weave

My philosophy towards web weaves and collage as an art form

Only one of those is the question you actually asked, so #2 is what I'll be talking about in this post! However, I am working on a video overview of the other topics, because I think they're worth exploring - I will obviously post that on this blog once it's done.

To avoid jumpscaring anyone with a wall of text, I've thrown my commentary under a readmore.

The one takeaway I'll mention before we dive in is if anyone has a character/narrative web weave request, please hit me up! I have so many I'm working on, having a next topic suggestion is super helpful to narrow things down.

General Creation Comments

I am At All Times collecting images, so it's only a matter of time until I make a webweave for a group/ concept/ person:

(My phone storage is Certainly being utilized. Also I will never be free of making these.)

It just so happened that my Third Life folder filled up fastest/ felt like it was in a good balance to work with, so that's what I started with!

I try to use a mix of text and images, and both serious and funny stuff. Even at its most serious the Life Series is also funny, and it's important to reflect that!

That said, if you compare the jokes I've picked in this piece vs the void falling web weave, you'll notice the jokes on this one trend sharper. The 'How to Detect Misery' and 'How to Tell if it's Over' memes (both from @thatsbelievable, who is a GREAT source of web weave content) are morbidly funny. Surviving horrific circumstances, preparing to suffer, unimaginable violence, eroticism and death, covered in blood - all of the jokes are violent.

As I go, I weed out posts that don't fit, or (mostly) prune text posts out. Too much text ruins the flow, and I LOVE words so I tend to have too much writing and not enough art.

3rd life had only a few things that didn't make the cut, bc I was fairly judicious as I added to that folder, but these were scrapped:

As I added the posts I knew I wanted and split them between panels, I naturally started seeing a 'flow' from early game biomes/bases and the more tender pairings, into violence + devotion, and then ending in.. something. I wasn't sure what I wanted the end to be yet.

I ran out of posts, and knew I needed Wayyy more images to offset the text, so I went looking through the Smithsonian's excellent collection of CC0-licensed art!

That's where I found the Perfect Image - that last picture of the red angel laid low. I knew immediately that it needed to be most of the final scene, with very little obscuring or distracting from it.

Okay, diving into specific panel analysis!

Panel One

It's the beginning, so everything is still fairly light - lots of brown and green tones.

The summary (imo) is that every faction in 3rd Life is in different stories!

Grian and Scar are playing cowboys, an old Western style narrative where they're beholden to each other, out to get the Bad Guys (even if objectively they're the ones being violent little instigators).

Flower Husbands are a greek fucking tragedy, Jimmy's sudden loss and Scott in mourning, trying to cause as much destruction as possible before the gods knock him down too.

Dogwarts are a middle English story of fealty and homosocial bonds and dying for honor.

And the Crastle is like. Shakespeare or Arthur Miller or Stoppard. They are in a theater, they are playing with all of the narratives. Too aware of the trajectory they're on, and entirely unable to stop it.

The images on the first page are the four primary pairings in 3rd Life - top left, in the background of the 'How to Detect Misery' meme, is the desert. The sudden punchline of that meme felt like a good starting point - a creeper-blast of a joke.

The pair to the right represent Scott and Jimmy. I liked the Impressionist and classic myth-inspired stylization. Also, the toga blended near-seamlessly into the desert hill so it looked almost like a wing, implying a tie to angels as well as foreshadowing Jimmy's death AND Scott's partnership with Grian/Scar.

Up in the top right-hand corner is a little Crastle, and the pair embracing on the right side of the page are Bdubs and Cleo. The red hair fit, but it was the old-fashioned clothing and sense of finality that I really liked.

On the left is Dogwarts - Ren and Martyn. I wanted an image that had a very different style, as they were opposed to desert duo + everyone else. I felt the sketchy ink stood out and elicited ideas of worn vellum paper. It felt like a sketch you'd discover sitting in a chest of a long-worn-down enchanting room.

There's a forest and a mostly-occluded castle in the background art on page one, also meant to represent Dogwarts. That forest bleeds into the next page, where the violence really begins.

Panel Two

We've started with a forest, but it's darker than the last one, and wilder.

Bursts of red stand out violently on the page.

'Fallen Angel' is a classic for emotionally fraught blorboposting! There are many, Many Mountain Goats songs that fit, but the way a-doctor-not-a-fangirl paired this line with this painting was striking to me. In particular, I like how 'getting revenge' was something that drove most of 3rd Life, even though Red Lives (come unhinged) were meant to be the driving force of violence. They weren't supposed to have bonds, they weren't supposed to have allies! But it's the bonds that drove the violence.

The 'I heart eroticism and death' cut-out plopped onto the collage was intended to feel like a kind of cheesy tourist stamp - 'I killed my friends in horrible death games and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' vibes.

The 'First off' comment feels like the illogical thought proces all of the doomed players (so, all of the players) were following - "if I just do well enough at murder, this will all be over."

The 'moments of grace' image is probably my most indulgent addition. I wanted a softer, quiet nod to the good parts, to the fun and the joy in between the violence. In particular, the dawn breaking on waves reminded me of the short span Grian and Scar spent tensely placing TNT under sand in the desert. I imagine silent cooperation and the sussuration of sand on sand, and quiet for just a few minutes.

'It's better to know how to let others unmask you and to endure the rule of the game' means: if you are too good, if you survive long enough, you will end up alone. This is about Bdubs and Cleo - kings of roleplay, of being a little overeager and dying for it and getting a mercifully quick ending. It is also about the cactus ring.

Panel Three

The centerpiece of this page is 'G-d's Idea', the beautiful abstract painting of a blood-soaked angel. It makes me insane every time I see it. Grim reaper in mourning kinda guy

I wanted to do something to tie more directly to the end, but didn't want to pull a disembodied-face-in-90s-grad-photo approach to add Scar. So I found a drawing that looked like the Monopoly Mountain build, and carefully added it onto one wing. I really really like this as an addition, it is probably my favorite combination in this post.

The Anne Carson quote is obvs in Minecraft font - I also split up the lines, so that the left and right side loosely create their own sentences/ideas. "There is a theory that watching other people is good for you" and "Unbearable stories may cleanse you of your darkness." I wish I had been more careful with the contrast on 'yourself all', but oh well, we can just call it being difficult to read an experiential facet of the poem.

"Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone?" is a good fucking line, and manages to mirror both the commentary on us the viewers AND the experience of the creators AND the experience of the characters. We get to experience violence vicariously, the creators get to experience it with friends + in safety, and the characters (or character, I should say, just Grian left by the time you're reading this) are experiencing that low point totally alone.

Aside from the obvious fit, the Rosencrantz + Guildenstern lines stand in as a conversation between the viewers and the characters. The appraising description of kiling and dying beautifully makes way for a mournful interruption that no, fuck that, this isn't a game for us (with some obvious irony there).

Finally, I needed it to end funny; the whole thing is already more serious than it probably should've been. I like this joke because it's short, and it implies the aftermath in a comedic way. Picturing everyone spawning back into Hermitcraft, covered in blood, upset, but mostly with a profoundly awkward sense of 'well I fucked that one up. That got a bit more homoerotic than intended, and now every other shopping trip I have to make awkward eye contact with the person I mcMurdered."

Again, thank you so much for your ask and kind words! I'm looking forward to making a general guide video on web weaves one of these days :D

#salem tag #salem chatter #3lsmp #3lsmp meta #i am going to go pass out but i hope some of this is what you were hoping to hear about lol #salem answer

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swampstew · 2 years

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About Me

I'm Raven and I run this silly little blog from my small cottage deep in the swamp lands. You can call me Raven or Rowena since she is my OC insertion into the One Piece universe. I am openly queer, ethnic and welcome everyone into my space except for the bad types (racists, sexists, transphobes, etc.)

I love creative writing, saving stray ferals, and practicing witchcraft. I am caught up on a lot of anime/tv shows/books/etc. that I interact with, so here is your spoilers warning - if you wanna shoot the shit with me about something I am almost always down. If you're a fan of it, chances are I am too. If I haven't heard of it, I am googling it immediately.

Personally, I am here to write and draw One Piece content and to consume One Piece content. I tend to post my writing more than my artwork; I'm also more confident in my writing skill than my art. Also, a blogs a blog and I will often like and share other types of content that fit my interests. I simply don't have the time to run multiple blogs otherwise I'd have my Eustass Kid simp blog and then a personal blog for all my other interests. Instead it will all be on this blog, filled with chaotic energy that matches my own.

This IS an 18+ blog. Minors do not interact.

I've been obsessed with Eustass Kid since I first saw him in the Sabaody Arc - I was already writing my story on Rowena the Witch with the Straw Hats when I saw Captain Kid. The next thing I knew, I felt a stabbing pain in my chest from the love arrow Eros launched at me. I haven't been the same since and I ended up scrapping my original draft into the story that is currently up on AO3. Most of my content will revolve around Kid and the Kid Pirates but I love One Piece so much that I can and will add other characters at some point or another. I am completely caught up in the anime and manga, may post and/or reblog content that contain spoilers.

#raven's rantings #introducing myself #swampstew

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substituted-shinigami · 1 year

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Writing Update: Creative Corner April 2023

Welcome back to “Writing Updates”, which I’m thinking of renaming to Creative Corner, but uh we’ll see! (I tend to go back and forth on these things😅) My thought process is that instead of doing the “Good News/Bad News” format I’ve done in the past, I’m going to do a “Writing Corner” and an “Art Corner” instead. I’ll try it out and see how I feel about it. Anyway, let’s get on with the news!

TL:DR Version: I’m taking this month off…kind of. Last month was busy, but really fun!😁 This month was busy, but uh, not at all fun…long story.😅 Anyway, so no new one-shots this month. However! I did find some RenRuki fluff drabbles that I think you all might like, so I put them together in their own series. They’re perfect for a rainy day when you just want to feel good!🥰 They should be out later this month!

Read on if you want the long version:

Writing Corner:

*Sighs heavily* Alright, I’m gonna be honest, this month sucked. Between burnout, family stuff, and depression, I barely wrote at all. I have a nearly completed piece that I could try to rush edit and finish in time, and would at least come out okay. But I thought about it, and realized that while I do like the piece, it’s not at all what I felt like reading right now. I don’t read a “hurt/comfort with a bit of angst” piece when I’m sad, I read fluff, lots of fluff. In fact, I had a google doc with a couple of fluff scraps that didn’t fit anywhere else that I would sometimes go back to and read whenever I was sad just because it made me feel good. And then I thought, what if this month was bad for other people too? Would these pieces make them feel good? So I’ve decided to release these instead in a brand new collection I’m going to call “Soft Moments”. Admittedly, they are more like eating a sugary sweet dessert than having a hearty protein filled one-shot meal, but that’s exactly what they are for! They are there for people who need to read something nice on a hard day. Anyway, they aren’t exactly a one-shot, so that’s why I decided to put them in their own collection, rather than adding them to “We Can’t All Be Winners”. In the end, I’ve decided to release the “hurt/comfort” piece another time. This also works out well for my new (ever changing😅) schedule for WCABW, where I am going to do 3 months on, 1 off, 3 on, and so forth!

Art Corner: While I haven’t done much writing this month, I have gone back to my roots on this blog somewhat and started working on comics again. If you saw one of my earlier posts, you will know that I’m taking a crack at human based comics. They…are absolutely not proportional. But um…variety is the spice of life, right?!?! Anyway, hopefully they will at least be funny, but uh, we’ll see! That said, I'm thinking of eventually switching to digital art so that I don’t have to redraw backgrounds and unmoving characters, but that requires me to figure out how to draw with photoshop on my mini touch screen laptop so uh…………..

Bloodlines Corner (because let’s be honest, it gets its own spot at this point):

Me: *glares to some far off corner in my google docs* You do realize it’s been months now, right?

Bloodlines: *shrugs innocently*

So I’ve realized I haven’t actually explained the premise of this story to most people on this blog, so here we go. Originally, Bloodlines was a one-shot in its own series of one-shots based on the idea of “What would happen if Rukia got Hisana’s illness?” However, I realized that I hadn’t really thought it out well enough for an entire series. So then I was going to make it a one off one-shot in a series of one off one shots, thus spawning WCABW. However, it clearly needed more editing, so I decided to release “prestigious school au” instead. Fast forward several months and not only am I still editing it, but that one-shot turned first into a multi-part and eventually a multi-chapter fic, all the while the events of the story still staying within the same time period, and therefore taking place over the course of one day. It is… utterly ridiculous.

So anyway, it’s pretty long now, (well for me anyway, it’s almost 30 pages), which makes it take forever to edit. Unfortunately, I think that has caused the back chapters to suffer a bit, because for some reason I always prefer to edit things in order, so by the time I get to the end I’m pretty mentally exhausted. Therefore, I’ve decided to divide it up by only editing one chapter a day to make it easier on myself. Hopefully this will work out, and I can have it out by like August or something, but we will see! (Not being done until December is unfortunately still probable! 😅)

*Sigh* Welp, this has gotten long, but this month has been even longer so I guess it’s appropriate. In any case, thank you all for reading! The new fluff-filled anthology series should be out by the end of the month. Like I said earlier, it’s more like having dessert than dinner, but sometimes that's just what you need! See you all next month! 😊

#writing update #art update #writing update 2023 #creative corner

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skydigiblogs · 19 hours

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i totally forgot to even mention that i read through all of digimon next, i think bfhjsdbfjhsdbfs

i mean i also didn't mention reading through all of v-tamer but i feel much less negatively about v-tamer than i did about digimon next

i can go into more detail if people want i guess but at the end of the day i think you're gonna need to go into next with more critical thinking pants than v-tamer (which i would argue requires maybe only critical thinking shorts), and that has to do in main part with two very large parts of their plot.

this is gonna be long (but i mean, that's what you come to this blog for lol), and, unfortunately, i have a lot of not-so-fun gripes with digimon next.

characters with disability (and how that disability is portrayed or discussed)

train kid yuu's disability is functionally cured in the digital world, and a large part of his arc has to do with him getting the courage to have heart surgery. i don't think this was handled with the kind of nuance that could have made him more interesting to me, especially with yuu calling himself a "weakling" at one point (internalized ableism is a thing, but i don't think it was written well with yuu).

folks familiar with v-tamer might ask me what i think about rei, and i feel similarly that it's a little weird to have a disabled character lose their disability in the digital world. however, i at least like that rei seemed to acknowledge it beyond mentioning surgery to get rid of it, and multiple times it was mentioned that despite being able to use her legs, she had no feeling at all in them while in the digital world.

neither of these portrayals are particularly good pieces of representation, and signify to me that the authors really didn't know how to fit someone with disabilities into their story without it being for the purpose of angst.

barbamon

barbamon just. is a whole essay i don't want to write at the moment because of how extremely antis*mitic its design is. if you don't know what i mean, look at barbamon's mask. guess what? look at barbamon's concept art, too. that huge nose is a mask in the final design, but the fact that at one point the demon lord of greed was considered to have that be its actual nose is uhhhh.

bandai what can i say but yiiiikes.

digimon next had an uphill battle the entire time almost entirely thanks to picking barbamon as its antagonist. when you use an antis*mitic caricature as your antagonist, it's going to be really hard not to pull on antis*mitic tropes, too! or at least, that's what it really felt like with next, considering barbamon's whole plan is literally some great r*placement theory "kill all non-aligned digimon and control birth itself" bullshit.

while destroying/conquering the digital world is textbook digimon antagonist bullshit (every series has one), the elements and aesthetic of barbamon in next particularly bothered me because they really do not reflect well when paired together.

i'll remind you too that barbamon in next has a notably militaristic army in "the commandments." this also isn't foreign in digimon--- a few years after next, we would see troopmon in bagramon's army, as an example. but like, again, one of these antagonist leader digimon is a caricature.

i am assigning homework for anyone who read(s) next, and that is some literature on antis*mitism and what it looks like in media.

"sky, if you hated next so much, why are you posting about it?"

first off: because it's my blog and i can, lol

second off: because i wanted that sweet sweet yggy lore

as much as i have my issues with digimon next, i think it introduced some very fun tools that could be built upon. yggdrasil, and the fact it just sent its girlsona to the human world because it was worried humans didn't like digimon enough? EXTREMELY funny on paper, yes, but also a fascinating idea!

in next, we see that yggy is able to detach its consciousness from its core, and i think it would be fun to see that explored further. what if, instead of someone external taking control of the core, we see something similar to, say, a split (yes i'm bringing plurality into this). that's to say, yggy mitosises off its girlsona or something, cloning its consciousness to assess the situation beyond its core's reach. yggy core and yggysona, however, are split up because yggysona needs to go collect data. what if there was conflict between yggy core and yggysona because the data retrieved just doesn't make sense with the data yggy core started with?

furthermore, we see some interesting ideas with yggy's kernel, where it's guarded by a magnaangemon (who we see both fall and quite easily reclaim their status as magnaangemon). the implications of this are that yggy can sometimes be the god that angel digimon serve, and that it is possible for fallen angel digimon to become unfallen.

and then next drops NEO on us, calls it "a power beyond yggy" AND REFUSES TO ELABORATE? NO, GET THE FUCK BACK HERE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN GOD IS MADE OUT OF THE COLLECTED MEMORIES OF DIGIMON SPECIES? that's such a cool concept to me (and i am also a sucker for chimera characters, so uhhh), especially read with a metaphorical lens. like. the idea of god being our experiences has endless thematic storytelling potential in a series that is all about its characters Having Emotional Experiences.

anyways uh

digimon next, huh?

#sky talks #digimon #digimon next #digimon v-tamer #(the latter is mostly just mentioned in comparison to next)#fair warning this is really long even for me #i jokingly described digimon next as diet v-tamer to a friend and even after finishing i still think it isn't wholly inaccurate #they're both distinct enough but there are some plot elements that are just strikingly familiar fresh off of reading v-tamer #i only talk about the one comparison that really disappointed me but i do think the other comparisons to v-tamer i could make #are actually kind of cute and charming #next is very much a manga i wanted to enjoy more than i did #but i at least didn't dislike it enough to DNF it entirely

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diskmotif · 28 days

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handle breakdown post

originally posted in blisscord blog channel, edited for this format

this is a breakdown of my work for vai's song handle w/ trustt and nujioh

final cover if you havent seen it ^^

i had some insane work hours working on this ngl i stayed up till 5 am for like 3 days straight (this is the hardest ive ever grinded until legitimately this week) & i listened to vai's entire discography back to back to get into the headspace

initial sketches

concepts is a very good app btw infinite scroll is really nice, it draws in vector so it's extremely blessed for use w/ adobe illustrator (my program of choice)

u can see i was taking it very literally at the start, a literal handle on someone's back or a side profile of a handle kinda inspired by pc music's style, how they take concepts like the word apple and then word associate it with what people think of like this

but like idk i also wanted to get better at more abstract art so i did a lot of different concepts

i'm not really like some designers who get away with like 50 concepts, i always end up continually refining one until it's the definitive version

also i really like this wordmark, it's made out of car door handles but it looked too alien for how tangible the song was

ended up using these two in the final design ^^

this was also right after i worked on my decay design so i was doing a lot of blocky stuff

i started constructing words and letters out of blocks and then deconstructing them so. u can see the original on the bottom right and then the final wordmarks i used (top right) were deconstructions of the original word and rearranged for a better looking product

a lot of the original vector work was inspired by a random shipping label someone sent me LOL i lost the original label but here was my recreation of it (w/ handle text)

this was the first piece of vector artwork i did for it around the same time, i had asked vai for the lowpoly vai model she had commissioned, and the idea was to do like a wireframe similar to what she had before which is this

though i didnt really like how it turned out and i didn't really feel like it fit so i just threw random blender deforms on the model till i got here

idk it looks kinda goofy but i liked how it zoomed into a point

here's the final render

these were my first two drafts i did for putting everything together . i kinda hated them both so i never sent them to vai and i went to bed lol

so i started again with each individual part and started to work on laying stuff out i started w this but i thought it needed more

put stuff in and filled it in

the small design there is the sketch and blockout for the vertical logotype

if you remember the super scifi logotype from earlier it became this

a LOT of this design is just overlaying assets until they're nigh unrecognizable you'll see what i mean when i show the construction of the final psd i also made this like randomly distributed version of the boxy handle type that i used in some places

and from here i was working with blender a lot so this is a draft off that

but like i hated this one too LOL and i thought maybe it was the layout

so i redid it here

a lot of vai's songs have a dual meaning sorta between something like. scifi and used for an emotional beat (this was before eimi btw) so for example automata is used both as an allusion to like robots and also to show how the writer felt, so i was looking for something to work handle off of

and so i referenced windows (the operating system) handles which is basically a structure that represents a resource in windows, which is shortened to hWnd / HWND

and so

back to the overarching thing, one of the strongest elements in the design is the huge cage over the design

and if you have keen eyes you can see that this is actually a cut out version of the logotype blockout and sketch super zoomed in

i did this cause i thought it looked super sick zoomed in instead of just overlayed on top. plus it creates a ton of depth which is nice

this was the first draft with this concept

the big block in the middle with the design was something i tried to make work but uh it did not work :(

the pink just became stronger and stronger as i worked on it

if you notice in the background...

do you recognize these images? :D

scroll all the way back up to the earliest drafts i did, they're all stacked on top of each other + the exploded vai

here's the construction of everything

this represents vai (v000 = vai5000)

she had v000 on a different logo she had for some urlfest visuals during sensory era iirc but i thought it didn't match so i created a different more "serious" one

i found out after that it wasn't actually v000 but that's how i read it LMAO there's also a bunch of references to the lyrics on the design, this Just discard me from verse 1, Don't use me for reference from trustt's verse, and It's a vicious cycle from nujioh's verse

apparently vai thought these were a reference to trustt's earlier work with the figure style bc they used em too on their cover art but it's not LMAO, was just a coincidence

that's pretty much it ^^ ty for reading and pls commission me

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wavesoutbeingtossed · 4 months

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While we're all in our feelings tonight, one thing I'm really grateful for this year for this community and for following Taylor is that it's helped me regain some of my sense of style which has been sorely missing for years. (Caveat: everyone can and should wear whatever they want at all times. This is a very me situation.)

I was very much a Rory Gilmore-type dresser in college and liked to dress up cute and play with makeup and such but then eventually ended up in a job where I was working seven days a week and almost exclusively wore athleisure most of the time. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!!!! You do you boos! It served its purpose for me as well!) And between just being exhausted and being in an environment where dressing up was Not A Thing (which had its own benefits absolutely) and also gaining a lot of weight in the past 5-7 years, I've been so absolutely uncomfortable in my skin and stuck in such a rut.

And while Taylor's style isn't always in my wheelhouse (though it is a lot more often than not) and I'm not tall, thin, blonde or rich, seeing how Taylor plays around with accessories and palettes and textures and kind of inadvertently studying that (and a huge thanks to the Taylor Swift Style blog for tracking all that stuff down), I've started playing around with that myself to see what I like and how I can express myself and my own style through that has honestly been kind of life changing in a way. Because while I still very much feel like an alien in my own body (and wish I looked and felt like I did ten years ago when I was in the best shape of my life), it's at least making me feel like I am gaining the tiniest bit of confidence in myself.

This is not to say that makeup and clothes make everything better. The beauty industry complex is toxic as fuck for a million different reasons and I actively resent it everyday. But I also love the art of makeup; I love how using different palettes play off the colour of my eyes, or different lipstick colours can convey totally different vibes. (I don't wear it everyday, and more often than not when going out don't wear more than a little mascara and eyeliner.)

I love how changing an outfit can go from "I'm a cosmopolitan girl walking through the big city like I belong"* to "I want to run through a field and get lost"** or whatever. I've spent more money on clothes this year than I have in the past five, but they've been intentional and made me think about how they go together, the quality of fabrics and how they hang, and how I can achieve the looks I aspire to. And I also started thrifting!

(*I am definitely not, I'm hopelessly suburban, but I could be a big city girl again if I wanted to. **I also am not actually one to run through fields but you know, I could cosplay the folkore photoshoot if I really wanted to too.)

When those first post-Joever photos from dinner hit in April from NYC in the black bodysuit and jeans, it made me think, "huh, I really like how this looks, but if I were going to wear it, what would I do differently?" and it's gone from there. I've discovered that despite the fact that at first it made me feel like I was 14 in my skating costumes again, I really loved how versatile bodysuits could fit with other pieces of clothing, whether they were high-waisted jeans or wide-leg pants or linen shorts or whatever, and took off from there.

I started experimenting with all the costume jewellery I have (and added more) and how I could change up my stack in a way I haven't since I got my second piercings when I was 13. (Still really tempted to go for #3 and/or a helix that I've wanted since I was 17 butttttt think I'm too chicken at the end of the day.) I've rediscovered my love of blazers and found my pair of go-everywhere white sneakers. (Am never going to be a high heel girl except for fancy events though lmao.) I dug out my jean jacket I hadn't worn in years. I have tried (and mostly failed) to draw a cat eye sharp enough to kill a man.

I'm getting a little better at caring for myself and becoming marginally more accepting of myself where I'm at.

I'm by no means a fashionista and don't follow that world in a general sense, and I'm definitely not, like, setting out to copy Taylor's style at all, however I am grateful that not only do I have all these music that fills me with joy, have made friends online and have bonded with friends IRL over it and now have an awesome trip to Europe on the books for 2024, but that I'm also kind of rediscovering and reconsidering what I like to wear and feel directly and indirectly thanks to Taylor too.

If 2023 was good for one thing for me, it may just be that at least.

#personal #long post #i know this is very silly but it has kind of meant a lot to me!!!#like I would rarely copy/paste a Taylor outfit for a variety of reasons #but there's usually at least one part that makes me think #blondie almost had me buy a crystla necklace at one point lmao #so this may be very taycapitalist of me or whatever idk #but at least I've stepped away from fast fashion and have started buying clothes that are built better and end up being more versatile!#I have bought a shit ton of makeup though but you know you have to go through some duds to find what you like #writing letters addressed to the fire

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ilovejoyjessie · 5 months

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With this past Tuesday being Jay-Z's birthday (Happy Belated HOV Day to all who celebrate 💎), I figured no time is better than this week to chat about my choice to make J's Magna Carta Holy Grail album "Hidden Figures"'s running musical inspiration .

The idea came to me when "Holy Grail" happened to pop on while I started drafting my first blog post for the series where, in a raw emotional state - as I tried to figure out how I was going to put my views and experiences about my Seattle existence into words - my longing yet conflicted feelings were underscored by the early lyrics of the song:

"...And, baby, it's amazin' I'm in this maze with you I just can't crack your code One day, you're screamin' you love me loud The next day, you're so cold One day, you're here (Yeah), one day, you're there (Yeah) One day, you care (Yeah), you're so unfair "

The words seemed to sing what I felt about living as a transplant in this city where it seemed I just couldn't find my way into it; I couldn't find where I belonged. And when I felt like I may have, the feeling wouldn't seem to stick or last.

But as the song continued, I found myself encouraged - as I am at every listen - by Jay's second verse where, after reflecting on the things that drive him crazy about the position he's found himself in thanks to fame, he steps out of the frustration to remind himself how far he's come and who he is despite those things following him:

"Why you mad? Take the good with the bad Or throw the baby out with that bath water You're still alive, still that nigga Nigga, you survived, still gettin' bigger"

The song seemed to ride the same emotional waves I found myself on as I looked to explain how "Hidden Figures" came to be: Confusion, hurt, disappointment...but then reflection, resolve and eventually emboldened acceptance and a doubling down on who I know I am. Despite the tougher feelings I found myself working through as I sought to talk about the project and what its concept was born from, I had to remember that - even in the face of those feelings - I've learned so much about myself, my values, what genuine relationships mean to me and have accomplished many things I could be proud of in this city...

Originally I only planned to introduce the first figure set with "Holy Grail", but as I continued listening to the album while I typed away, I heard more and more themes that reflected the things I wanted the piece to speak to: Being a Black figure existing under the White Gaze ("Oceans", "F.U.T.W", "Somewhereinamerica"), knowing my worth ("Picasso Baby", "fuckwithmeyouknowigotit")...each figure had its own theme so it only made sense for each figure to be presented with its own theme song.

Along with the album speaking to similar themes to Hidden Figures, it also seemed fitting that one of my most art-for-art's-sake works would be paired with what, I think, is one of the most artistic of Jay-Z's projects at the time MCHG was released (a view not everyone shares but, you know....). As a long time fan, the musical arrangements, the deep lyrics but also the quintessential rap boast tracks, the cover artwork, even Jay-Z's performance of Picasso Baby at the Pace Gallery - the album felt art house, a capsule of Jay being seen through a curated rap lens. And in the same vein, Hidden Figures is a capsule of all the feelings I've had as a transplant in Seattle delivered through a traditional Fine Art lens: No character or story to watch unfold - just a concept and (hopefully) moving and simple yet evocative shapes in a open space with something to say - a further engaging with and appreciation for the art form.

Magna Carta Holy Grail spoke what I didn't have the words to say and said everything I left out of the words I did have. And I guess at the same time, in a way, my use of the album is also my own little lover letter to and celebration of one of my favorite lyricists and rappers of all time whose music has held a place of honor in my life for a long time.

#jay-z #magna carta holy grail #rap #rap blog #black artists #theme song #music #shawn carter #beyonce #Spotify

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