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ohnoitstbskyen · 2 months

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I know it would probably bring a lot of hate comments but I am begging you to roast the hazbin character designs because I'd love to have someone properly articulate why they don't work so I could send it to people who won't believe me when I tell them. 🫠 Understandable if you don't want to get into it though.

I don't think there's that much there to roast, honestly?

Those designs are clearly an extremely specific stylistic choice, and because that style is consistent throughout the show, it ultimately feels coherent with itself.

There are trade-offs being made. Because Hazbin's design style is SO stylized and so heavy on decoration and detailing, because it puts a lot of emphasis on costuming, it isn't as good at communicating specific character storytelling as a more grounded style could be (it's kind of the same tradeoff that stuff like Genshin Impact makes).

Like, why does Sir Pentious' hat have an eye and a mouth on it that makes its own expressions? Apparently not for very much reason at all, except that Pentious has a bit of an eyes-motif going on in his design and it was one more place to put an extra eye. And that's a valid criticism of his design, but also the entire show is designed like that, so frankly it would be weirder and more out of place if his design alone didn't have that kind of overelaborate decoration going on.

It does create a situation where I have a hard time "reading" the character designs sometimes. For example, Vox, Alastor and Pentious all wear a similar style of suit with upwards-turned shoulders, butterflies and pinstripes. Now, am I meant to read that as Vox imitating Alastor due to his crippling need to replace and outdo him, and Pentious imitating the style of powerful Overlords because he thinks that possessing their level of power will finally give him relief from his paranoia and self-loathing?

Or is it just a design fixation of the creator who keeps putting their characters in suits because that's just what they like? I can't really be sure, because sometimes design elements are used to intentionally tell stories about how characters relate to themselves, their world and one another, but plenty of other times designs look the way they do Because Of Vibes.

But again, that lack of clarity is clearly an intentional trade-off - and the benefit of that trade-off is a design style that is extremely varied, wild, expressive and memorable. Hazbin Hotel seems like a very easy show to draw fanart of, and a very fun show to draw fanart of. Those designs (especially the hyper-expressive faces) are begging to be the subjects of traumatic headcanons, unbearably cotton-candy soft fluff fantasies and weird, taboo, homoerotic power dynamics. Slaps roof of character design, this bad boy can express so much vicarious emotional intensity.

It's very exuberant, very excited about itself and very self-indulgent, it's a style that prioritizes visual impact and visual interest over readability (something which the animators of the show navigate with real skill, props to them) and individual aesthetics over worldbuilding.

And I don't blame anyone for being turned off by that (I certainly was the first time I started seeing those designs going around), but I would struggle to call the show's designs "bad" when they are clearly achieving exactly what they want to achieve.

I have some criticisms, especially re: how the show treats skinny bodies as an unquestioned, desirable default, and employs fatness as a means of alienating and abjecting the audience. That sucks very badly, and is a serious disappointment, and one of the few places where the show feels like it is being cowardly in its design philosophy. But I don't have it in me to do some kind of Hazbin Hotel Sucks And Here's Why takedown, its problems are not unique or extreme enough to warrant it, at least not as I currently understand them.

#tb answers #hazbin hotel #character design

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vouam · 2 months

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(I believe this happened a few months ago, absolutely heartbreaking. Rest in peace.)

This tweet is currently going viral with (of course) a lot of men claiming ‘this is because of culture, not religion!’

They clearly lack critical thinking skills because while yes, the religion does not state women should be killed for showing their hair, she is still ordered to wear it by the Quran and threatened with Jahannam (hellfire). A woman revealing her hair is seen as a dishonour to the family - the exact motive for this case. Misogynistic culture obviously is a factor too. The entitlement to women’s bodies, control over their life or death, normalised violence. This case is clearly a result of both religion and culture.

Religion and misogynistic culture thrive because of one another. They use religion to justify their misogynistic cultural views and then claim ‘it’s culture!’ when something bad happens as a result.

In response to these comments from men, maybe do something about the mistreatment of women rather than play mental gymnastics because its culture not religion. Have some accountability. It’s still your culture and your religion, women are dying and you don’t care.

#radblr #radical feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminists do interact #gender critical #radical feminist community #atheism #islam #feminism #religion #misogyny #honor killing #violence against women

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cookinguptales · 8 months

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As someone who grew up in a bilingual household where we spoke English but also signed, the part of Mabel and Theo's relationship that fascinates me the most is the communication, or lack thereof.

I'm mostly hearing (...sort of...) but grew up around a lot of d/Deaf people, CODAs, interpreters, etc. so while I can't give any input on the experience of profound deafness, I can at least tell apart different styles of signing. It's a little hard to tell sometimes how much of this is characterization vs. the skill level of the actors, but it is interesting.

Teddy Dimas does not sign fluidly. It's immediately obvious. It's not that he's terrible or that he can't be understood... it's just that there are a lot of tells that he does not sign as a primary language. The terseness of the signs, the deliberateness. You can tell that there's a second of thought before each sign, a jerky sort of compactness to them, that's common with people who learn to sign later in life. (Or who don't get a ton of practice with it.)

Signing, when you do it right, requires the use of your whole body. That can be hard for hearing people, who are generally used to more restrained movements. Teddy Dimas has never quite lost that restraint. He still can't go all in, not with his signing or his parenting.

I always thought this was really interesting, because it means that Teddy most likely learned to sign for his son (tragically uncommon with hearing parents of Deaf children) but that he still can't quite translate his thoughts properly into sign language. He can't quite get his emotions through to his son. There's a barrier there between them, and it seems to be largely one that Teddy's erected -- until Theo starts snapping back.

What I'm getting at is that Teddy has always forcibly drawn his son into his world instead of immersing himself in Theo's, and it shows. And it has really harmed their relationship, in more ways than one.

Zoe... we don't see a ton of her signing, but there does seem to be something somewhat performative about it. It's more fluid, like perhaps she's done it her whole life, but there's also something sort of... idk, false about it? And I wonder if that's just Zoe. It felt like she was always covering up her true feelings of loneliness and emptiness with a flamboyant personality, and the little flourishes to her signing seem to convey that as well. Her signing feels almost theatrical to me.

Theo and Mabel, though... I've always loved that episode where they go to Coney Island together. I get the criticism that Theo said at the beginning that he couldn't understand much of what she said when he was reading lips -- and then she proceeded to just talk at him for the rest of the episode anyway. But to me, at least, that always seemed like it was kind of the point. They couldn't understand each other, not fully, and that was something soothing to them.

There's something healing, I think, about shouting into the void. Letting out all of your most personal, complicated feelings without fear of repercussion or judgement. Talking into the wind because you know it won't talk back. You need to feel that echo but also know that it won't be heard.

I think there was some of that there in their initial relationship. Both of them desperately needed to talk, to get everything off their chests, but both of them also have trouble opening up to others due to trauma. So I think speaking to someone who couldn't understand them was, in some ways, ideal. They could make a human connection while keeping it fairly impersonal. They could unload without fear of judgement -- or worse, understanding.

Oddly, I think their mutual need to communicate without being understood was the one thing they understood best about each other. They could sense each other's loneliness and wariness and inability to trust that they could tell someone something important without it being used against them -- because their love and their trust have always been used against them.

So maybe in a way, their inability to talk to each other was actually what helped them communicate on a deeper level...?

Still, though. Still. I was so pleased to see that Mabel is learning more sign language so she can talk to Theo. She's got a long way to go, but no one learns to sign overnight. She's making progress, and you can tell that Theo appreciates it. There are still times where he gets too excited and signs too fast and she doesn't catch all of it, and there are times when she gets so wrapped up in her own soliloquies that she forgets that you have to face Deaf people while talking to them, but there's a familiarity to it now. When he signs too fast, she smiles and teases him. When she talks too quickly or forgets to sign or turns away from him, he just smiles and sighs and shakes his head. Then waits for her to come back.

Theo finds it irritating, obviously, but also understands that it's just... Mabel. She spends so much time in her own head that she has trouble communicating even with people who speak her language, as evidenced with Tobert. And maybe Theo does understand her in ways that others can't. Maybe it's the very fact that he accepts that he can't always understand her that makes her feel comfortable with him.

I also have to wonder, y'know... Has anyone ever learned to sign for him before, other than his father, who clearly saw it as a burden? Has anyone ever seen him as worth the effort of learning, not out of an obligation to speak to him but a desire to? No wonder he's being patient with her. I wonder if anyone has ever put in as much effort for him as she already has. It makes me so sad to think about, because what she's doing now is so... bare minimum. Theo has been so desperately alone, and so much of that is because his father isolated him. It's because no one else ever reached out. :(

idk, it just makes me happy that these two people who originally bonded over their inability to communicate are now comfortable enough with each other to try actually talking. There's something so shy and so joyful about it. I love that for them, especially Theo.

I don't want him to be alone anymore!! I want him to have someone he can talk to, whom he trusts enough to talk to, who thinks he's worth learning to talk to back!

Their odd brand of bilingual communication (or lack thereof) is just fascinating to me. ;;

#omitb #omitb spoilers #only murders in the building #long post #look I'm not going to pretend to be an expert #I learned to sign from parents and siblings and babysitters and a WHOLE bunch of nuns #some of whom knew ASL and some SEE #I never had formal training because I just learned kind of... organically I guess #and my signing is VERY pidgin #I can talk to my family obviously but I'm never going to call myself an expert #but these are my thoughts at least

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ao3commentoftheday · 2 years

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*person compliments your fic*

humility: omg thanks! I wasn't really sure about this one, so I'm glad you think it turned out!

self-deprecation: it was so much better in my head. I only posted because I got tired of looking at it.

self-loathing: you don't have to be nice. I know it's trash. I should just delete it

confidence: as soon as I got the idea, I just *knew* I had to write it!

arrogance: right? I wish other people could write like this too but so many people in this fandom just don't understand the characters like I do

---

I keep trying to find ways to explain the thoughts that I have when I read the notes on my posts where people beat themselves up. I'm writing this in a convincing tone (I noticed when I was 1 paragraph away from finishing), but that's just how I communicate most of the time. Please add in whatever caveats you think are appropraite. This is just me trying to think my way through some things.

So many of you out there seem to think that the only way to be "honest" about your abilities is to criticize yourself harshly. Like being kind to yourself is somehow self-aggrandizing.

Humility and confidence are two ends of the same spectrum. In both cases, you're secure in your own abilities. You have faith in yourself and what you can do. Humility relates to your internal security and the way you treat yourself. Confidence relates to your external security and how to relate to others.

If you are humble or confident, you have a realistic understanding of what you can and can't do. What you're good at, what you're great at, and what you can't do very well at all. You can accept a compliment when it's earned and you can accept a critique when you're trying to improve. Neither change your self-perception very much one way or the other. You'll be more humble when you're just learning a new skill and you'll be more confident once you're on your way to mastering it.

Self-deprecation and self-loathing are signs that you don't have a realistic view of your own capabilities. You're insecure and comparing yourself to others and finding yourself lacking. This might be a learned behaviour, where every time you showed confidence you were told you were getting prideful. It might be a case of insulting yourself before others are able to insult you - taking the power back from a bully by bullying yourself first.

Arrogance is also unrealistic, but at the other end of the spectrum. With arrogance, you compare yourself to others and put yourself in first place. You think others are below you or can't compete with you, that you're better than they are and they could never be as good as you. There's an insecurity with arrogance too. A fear that if you aren't the best then you must be a loser. If you're not number 1 then you aren't worth anything.

I use the example of getting a compliment because it's so commonplace in creative spaces. If you're insecure, it can be hard -even painful!- to accept them but learning how to do so can be a really valuable step on the road to learning how to be better to yourself.

#thinky thoughts #I'm still not getting the ideas out of my brain very well #so expect this to be the next thing I won't shut up about #as I try to noodle my way through it #long post #still #this turned out better formed than it was in my brain before I started typing #so I'll take that as a win!

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the-modern-typewriter · 21 days

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Hello this is a question that came about from watching the new Fallout TV show and a character named Maximus. He’s a relatively neutral character and his arc is very wonderful coming from a writer and big book reader but I noticed that the average viewer doesn’t understand his character and actually hates him… my question is as an author is it okay to make your story more digestible to people who lack perception since it’s the general audience for mainstream media and how do you do that without losing your story? Idk this was probably too complex and a stupid question 💔

Not a stupid question! There are no stupid questions.

Going to unpack this a bit though. (I haven't seen the show.) First some general points, but then some advice on balancing complexity in a story.

So. Some things to get out of the way:

You don't know what the average viewer is thinking. Just because their opinion on a character is different to yours, doesn't mean they lack perception. Do we sometimes have an issue with critical thinking in the modern age? Yes. But we also live in an age where people bring a vast array of different insights and experiences into the stories they read/watch. 99% of the time a story doesn't have just one right interpretation, especially if it is a more complex narrative.

You CAN try to write a story that is more digestible to a general audience, but if you do have concerns about the media literacy of the general population, focusing on providing unchallenging stories is not the fix to that. People learn through engaging with interesting work and having discussions about them - e.g. when they are given the opportunity to. Perception, like anything, is a skill trained with practice. No one's born with it. There's no inherent us/them that can't be changed.

Will you be happy and fulfilled as a writer writing stories that you feel are dumbed or watered down? I know I wouldn't end up writing the versions of stories that I want. Similarly, you probably won't then attract the readers/audience that most resonate with your ideas, because you don't give them the chance.

Generally speaking, people hate being talked down to. As a reader/lover of stories, if I thought a writer was talking down to me and thought I was an idiot who couldn't understand the themes/plot, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with their stuff. It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? It's like being written off before you even leave the gate.

Okay, now some advice: Amazing children's books are a great example of stories that are simplified to appeal and meet the audience where they are at, without losing the richness that makes them resonate and engage readers/audience. However, there are adult examples too. They share some qualities.

These often have:

Clear structure (there are a myriad story structures that you can use to make a story hit beats the reader expects and create a sense of satisfaction, while still giving you room to play.)

High concept story idea/plot (so, stories that can be explained/pitched in a line. E.g. children are forced to fight in televised death matches (Hunger Games), a famous author is imprisoned by a dangerous fan who doesn't approve of his new work (Misery), 'it's jaws in outer space!'). These stories have simple premises that often have wide-appeal, but the stories themselves can be complex.

Engaging main character(s) with a clear goal/agenda. They don't have to all be morally pure, but for an easy win, your character should be likeable/easy to root for. In a children's book, e.g. at the simplest level, these are often also high concept. (E.g. a mouse wants to be heard so is convinced it needs a lion's roar to be loved - The Lion Inside by Rachel Bright)

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. Game of Thrones was phenomenally popular, for example, but I don't think it's an easy to sink into world/simple set of characters.

Watering down an existing story to fit a different target audience is often not going to lead you to write the best story. This is because it's like trying to fit a triangle into a circle, or make a banana bread into a savoury scone. However, there are plenty of stories with mass-appeal that offer readers a variety of different levels to engage with them, so it is very possible to write a brilliant story with mass appeal. But you work from the foundations up, not from the finished product down.

I hope this helps!

#writing advice #writing talk #writing tips #creative writing #fiction writing #writing #on writing

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gatheringbones · 2 years

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[“But if French assessments of the character of ‘savages’ tended to be decidedly mixed, the indigenous assessment of French character was distinctly less so. Father Pierre Biard, for example, was a former theology professor assigned in 1608 to evangelize the Algonkian-speaking Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, who had lived for some time next to a French fort.

Biard did not think much of the Mi’kmaq, but reported that the feeling was mutual: ‘They consider themselves better than the French: “For,” they say, “you are always fighting and quarrelling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbour.” They are saying these and like things continually.’

What seemed to irritate Biard the most was that the Mi’kmaq would constantly assert that they were, as a result, ‘richer’ than the French. The French had more material possessions, the Mi’kmaq conceded; but they had other, greater assets: ease, comfort and time. Twenty years later Brother Gabriel Sagard, a Recollect Friar, wrote similar things of the Wendat nation.

Sagard was at first highly critical of Wendat life, which he described as inherently sinful (he was obsessed with the idea that Wendat women were all intent on seducing him), but by the end of his sojourn he had come to the conclusion their social arrangements were in many ways superior to those at home in France. In the following passages he was clearly echoing Wendat opinion: ‘They have no lawsuits and take little pains to acquire the goods of this life, for which we Christians torment ourselves so much, and for our excessive and insatiable greed in acquiring them we are justly and with reason reproved by their quiet life and tranquil dispositions.’

Much like Biard’s Mi’kmaq, the Wendat were particularly offended by the French lack of generosity to one another: ‘They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.’

Wendat cast a similarly jaundiced eye at French habits of conversation. Sagard was surprised and impressed by his hosts’ eloquence and powers of reasoned argument, skills honed by near-daily public discussions of communal affairs; his hosts, in contrast, when they did get to see a group of Frenchmen gathered together, often remarked on the way they seemed to be constantly scrambling over each other and cutting each other off in conversation, employing weak arguments, and overall (or so the subtext seemed to be) not showing themselves to be particularly bright. People who tried to grab the stage, denying others the means to present their arguments, were acting in much the same way as those who grabbed the material means of subsistence and refused to share it; it is hard to avoid the impression that Americans saw the French as existing in a kind of Hobbesian state of ‘war of all against all’.”]

david graeber and david wengrow, the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity, 2021

#david graeber #history stuff #currently reading

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thesecretbits · 9 months

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Chan went on Bubble, told people that he makes his own decisions, his own rules. People immediately get mad that he's defending the company and say he's lying.

And this is the reason why he's taken a break from Chan's Room. Because some of you people are insufferable no matter what he says or does. You talk about how open he is with the fandom, but when he gets on Bubble to defend himself (not the company) and the decisions he makes because the fans insist on treating him like a child who is completely controlled by the company when he has told the fandom more than once how much input and say in SKZ as an entity he and the boys have in the things they do.

He said in Bubble months ago that he was not doing Chan's Room for the foreseeable future because they are busy. And they have been, flying from one country to the next for performances, concerts, and festivals, while still recording music for the albums they keep putting out. Fans complain about it daily. You saw a ten second video clip. What was said was in answer to a question that I did not hear in any video clip is saw, was not an official statement, and lacked context. Yes, maybe the company should have put out a statement saying that Chan's Room is on hiatus until further notice once a couple of weeks became a couple of months, but Chan did tell you that and nothing he said about the reason he wasn't doing it is untrue.

You say the company isn't protecting him right now, but what you can't accept is that the company is protecting Chan, from the fans and all the backlash that ensued every time he did Chan's Room.

Every time he came on live, he had to wade through a slew of nasty, inappropriate comments. Fans would take clips of what he said, post them on the internet, he would get hate from antis, and then more people would show up in his comments telling him to off himself or call him vile, disgusting things. There were so many comments that were high key sexual harassment, a lot of them from his own fans. Fans would trauma dump on him, constantly tell him to speak English, constantly complain about him going live too late and how he should be sleeping as if he isn't a grown adult man, and bombard him with requests for other members to join him. He had to start only reading comments from the fan club community to try to weed out the sheer number of inappropriate ones, but people were mad about that because Bubble community is not open to everyone.

Chan's Room might be important to him, I'm not saying it isn't, but doing it every week and then having to watch and then deal with the fallout the next day must have been mentally exhausting. Some of the fans couldn't even chill out when his friend died, and he was obviously sad but still doing lives.

What about any of that says that Chan's Room is still a safe space for Chan? Why are we surprised that he's decided to take a break from that? Him wanting to connect with the fans the way he did when he was doing his lives does not negate the fact that doing so is mentally taxing.

Telling the fans that he makes his own decisions is not defending the company. It's defending himself. People telling the fandom to look inward and take some accountability for its actions is not defending the company. No one is defending the company. We're telling you that what you've been doing, something Chan has explicitly said does not help, and how you've responded to something that, so far, has not been officially stated is wrong. Stop mass emailing, stop sending trucks, stop being obnoxious under JYPE posts on social media. You just give antis even more fodder against the boys, and make the entire fandom look childish to everyone who knows Stray Kids and/or works with them.

Some of you fans really need to take a step back and reevaluate. Because some of you really take this parasocial relationship a little too seriously and use no critical thinking skills to navigate it.

#stray kids #skz #this is the last thing I'm saying about this #but this fandom has been so exhausting lately #a lot of you just do not respect SKZ as people #and if you can't do that #why are you even here

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genericpuff · 1 year

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Lore Olympus Art Analysis - Getting to the Bottom of It

For ages now it's been a common point of discussion - what's the process involved in Rachel's creation of Lore Olympus?

As a community, we've all discussed and speculated Rachel's process among herself and her assistants and how it seems to result in cheaper art each week. Same face syndrome, the overuse of the multiply tool, the dull backgrounds that often enter nightmare fuel territory, the lack of color vibrancy compared to Season 1, the repetitive poses and shots, the theories that different assistants are handling different aspects of individual panels, the clear lack of buffer, the list goes on and on.

But I think we've finally gotten to the bottom of what's going on. Or at least, deeper than we've gotten before and it feels like now we're closer to fully understanding Rachel's process than ever before.

Normally, I wouldn't care this much about dissecting the steps of creating a comic. Everyone's process is different, and when you're working with a team, that can introduce a whole new layer of understanding. I've worked with my own assistants in the past, trained to work in the animation industry which relies on coordination between people, and fully understand what's required to go into making a finalized piece of work put together by multiple people. All that's to say, having assistants doesn't necessarily mean you do less work.

When it comes to LO, though, I do feel this compulsion to tear into it more because Rachel seems to completely lack this understanding, and it shows in her work.

Before I continue, I want to throw in a quick disclaimer - when we criticize Rachel's art, it's not to throw any of her assistants under the bus. All of her assistants are incredibly skilled in their own right. When I criticize Rachel's art as a whole - regardless of who helped shape it into its final form - I'm criticizing not just the art itself, but her direction. Rachel is, essentially, a director of a team, and how she manages that team reflects how her work looks in the end after it's all been put together. I will be showing pieces of art from her assistants in this essay, none of this is to promote any shame or hate towards these people. This is purely an essay speculating on Rachel's directing capability and how she manages her team and is not meant to be taken as objective fact beyond what I am capable of proving as an outsider looking in. I consider her assistants people who are just being hired to do a job, I do not condone holding them responsible for the nosedive Lore Olympus has taken in quality over the past few years. These are simply points and speculations that myself and the ULO community came to after discussing it at length.

Alright, so, where to begin?

This essay started with me having a simple conversation with @loreolympusminoredits over on Instagram. They had pointed out a couple panels from a recent free episode where you could see the texturing wasn't being applied properly. You have to look really closely, but once you spot it, you can clearly see the outline of a square where the texturing block wasn't repeated.

It's VERY obvious in this last panel of Hades, look along the back of his shirt, you can clearly see the color warping from the texture block overlaid on top of him.

Now, I have a few theories for this on its own, it really depends on what drawing program these assistants are using. Some of them use Clip Studio. Others use Procreate. There is no consistent requirement in workstations or software among the team, which is Rachel's first mistake. There's a reason why the animation and film industry requires everyone to be using Adobe products whether they like it or not - because it keeps things consistent across the board. It doesn't matter how good you are at Clip Studio or how much you like Procreate, you need to be on the same software and hardware as everyone else to ensure that you can access the same tools, brushes, and workflow as the rest of the team. No one wants to have someone working primarily in Clip Studio who can't access the same brushes or files as the people working in Adobe. As much as I personally hate working in Photoshop, if I were to get an industry job, I would be expected to work in Photoshop, no questions asked. It's part of the job.

Moving on from that, this led me to wonder which assistant was doing these panels, because it's clear that this texturing problem is mostly at the end of Episode 242 during the Persephone / Hades conversation. There's also one stand-out feature that tells us it's the same person making these panels - the bobblehead necks.

Bobblehead necks have been a very noticeable feature in the comic's art decline over the past while. They typically happen when a character - especially a female one - is being drawn from the front. They're usually also defined with noticeable jugular and collarbone lines.

So, which assistant is it drawing the bobblehead necks?

Rachel's art team switches up a lot. Sometimes she has 3, sometimes she has as many as 8. Some assistants tag in, others are consistent.

So far the most noticeably consistent assistants in terms of participation since S2.2 (i.e. post-time skip S2) are Dnaeri, HardHeadedWoman, AmyKing89, and HeyItsJaki (as credited on their episodes). They're the usual team credited at the end of episodes, with the exception of maybe one artist not being present or an extra artist tagging in.

Upon checking their Instagrams, I am becoming way more certain of who does what and how Rachel does her process.

Let's start with HeyItsJaki:

Very thick lineart, distinguished collarbones, defined fingernails/fingers. Thick shading underneath the neck. Sometimes pouty lips if the expression calls for it.

Now let's look at HardHeadedWoman:

Very Disney/Warner Bros reminiscent art, with most notably, thick necks and distinguished jawline features on guys and hourglass figures/thin wrists/thin fingers on women.

And then we have Dnaeri:

It's harder to pin down her style because she seems to just draw whatever she's feeling like, but most notably are how she draws hands and collarbones, very similarly to Jaki, but with one noticeable difference - softer and rounder lines and shapes.

The irony is that Dnaeri and HeyItsJaki both have the same name - Jaki - so them having similar tells in their styles is just something I wanted to point out. Just a funny thought.

That said, Dnaeri DID post a drawing of Persephone once in her own style/interpretation, and there are definitely things to note here.

The collarbone distinction. The anatomy of the fingers and toes. The lighter lineart. The little 'dip' along the edge of the smile.

Moving on. Let's talk about the last assistant who I feel deserves a specific mention - AmyKim89.

You see, Amy is what I'm going to call the smoking gun. All thanks to this post:

Recognize that panel? That's the flat of Dream Persephone from Episode 204.

And this is what the final panel looked like.

Now, Webtoons cropping aside (don't mind the seam running through Persephone's chest) this confirms multiple things for us.

1. AmyKim89 was not the one to shade this panel.

2. The assistants are working purely off Rachel's sketches.

3. The assistants can be in charge of their own lining, which would explain the inconsistent lineart throughout each episode.

4. There are no backgrounds present meaning someone else is in charge of the backgrounds.

5. Flats can be changed and added to after the assistant has already done their job.

To talk about #5 first, notice the pantyhose that were added that make her legs disappear into her cloak. The baby's face changing. The added flower and necklace. Her eyes changing direction.

Regarding #1, look at how the shading makes the art so much more dull. The previous version of this panel with just the flats genuinely looks so much better than the finished piece.

This was, as I'm sure you can imagine, a pretty big find. While I'm sure Amy would probably not be happy to see me using her innocent post as proof for my hyperfocused ramblings tearing apart Rachel's process, I'm glad she posted it nonetheless because it finally shows us a smidge of what the process might be like during production.

Going back to the shading really quick - Amy was not the one who shaded that panel. But I did notice that out of every little inconsistent thing in LO, the shading is some of the most consistent, and it's consistently awful. Dull muddy tones, lack of consideration of space or lighting, clearly the multiply tool being used even when it really shouldn't be, placement of shading primarily under the eyes even when it makes the face look too dim to look good.

It's always being done with the same watercolor-like brush, with the same multiplied tones, and the same 'edges' along where the shading hits the light.

We also know that Rachel eyedrops her colors.

I don't think it's farfetched to believe that her assistants likely do too to a degree. Or they're working off color palettes from previous episodes they've done before which is resulting in this color dissonance where characters change colors, sometimes in between panels.

Considering the constant muddy shading, and the fact that the assistants may not be doing it, I believe it's Rachel doing the shading in the post-production. If you need more proof, here's a reel of her shading in Hades with the exact same techniques seen in finalized panels.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rachel Smythe (@usedbandaid)

instagram

Otherwise, if it's not Rachel doing the shading, it could very likely be Dnaeri, as they're one of the longest-running assistants on the team (they came on during S1).

Moving on from that, let's circle back to AmyKim89's drawing of Persephone. She specifies she did the flats and lines for that panel, working off Rachel's sketches. But one noticeable thing is that there's no background.

This lead a bunch of us in ULO to speculate that Rachel is also the one throwing in the background and throwing PNG's of the characters on top.

Proof? How about the fact that there are panels out there with crunchy characters and pristine backgrounds?

I already suspected that the character was zoomed in and the background wasn't, but Amy's post confirms more than that - that the assistants are essentially drawing PNG's which don't get backgrounds until Rachel - or another one of her assistants - adds them.

Here's another panel that I strongly suspect was done by Amy judging by the colors (but the lineart feels like it could be Jaki):

Look at how she's floating in empty space. This wasn't drawn background first and Hestia second, this was drawn with Hestia first and they slapped a background behind her.

It would also explain why we get panels of characters missing their bottom halves or their limbs - because the backgrounds ended up being larger than they were anticipating in the final shot.

There are a whole bunch of things we can speculate on here knowing what we know from past essays and what I've laid out here.

Rachel may only be involved in the beginning and end of these episodes. She does the roughs, hands the sketches out to her assistants, which they flat and line, and she puts in the shading, dialogue/speech bubbles, texturing, and last details after they're all handed in. This would also explain why there are so many typos - lack of time to edit/proofread - and why sometimes there will be characters speaking but their mouths won't be open.

Rachel hands out the sketches to her assistants individually who flat and line it and hand them back. Sometimes they're handed individual panels, other times they're handed entire pages with a few panels on them. This would explain why we can go an entire scene with a character looking one way and then looking completely different by the next.

Think back to all those previous essays. Everything we've learned so far - that Rachel's buffer is miniscule, that she's shading with the multiply tool, that she's clearly only contributing the roughs and few panels that she makes from random drawings she did on a whim and waits until she can find a chance to shoehorn it into the comic.

Rachel started off drawing this comic just on her own. When she took on assistants, there were only two - AmbitiousIcarus and Madd_Joey.

But eventually, she took on more and more. Two became three, three became five, and nowadays, she maintains a consistent art team of 4-6 people per episode, not including herself or the rotating artists who come and go every now and then.

This has been happening steadily since the Episode 50's range of S1.

The summer when Lore Olympus' licensing rights for animation were sold to the Jim Henson Company.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that the assistants were the downfall of LO. I think they're all amazing artists, each in their own right - but their art is clearly failing to shine through in the wake of Rachel's poor management and organization. Rather than delegating single people to single roles - lines, flats, shading, texturing, etc. - she's handing things out panel by panel as she sketches them out... and considering how poor her time management is as we've all seen, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that these assistants are all being put in positions where they have to rush out lower quality work. Rachel is haphazardly dividing up the work between more people all the while contributing less and less on her own end in pre-production, post-production, and quality checking as time goes on. The final episodes weren't immediately noticeably bad as soon as she started taking on more assistants, but it's clear Rachel's involvement in the comic and its quality control has been declining rapidly since the Jim Henson purchase.

Again, this isn't to point fingers or assume the worst of anyone, but it really is food for thought. I hope that this was, at the very least, informative for those of us who've wondered over the years what Rachel's process is like. It definitely seems messy from what we can tell on the surface and frankly, if I could be in the same room as Rachel, I'd be using all this as an example of why she needs to manage her team and her time better. But that's not my place to do so. All I can do is speculate on it and spend way too much time writing an essay about it LMAO None of what I've written here is 'proof' of anything, as I'm not in the position to be able to do such a thing - that's reserved solely for Rachel and her assistants - but it's becoming plainly obvious what the workflow looks like and why the comic looks shittier and shittier every week.

All that said, I don't feel like her assistants get nearly enough credit for the work they do for Rachel. She can't even be bothered to remember the name of the guy who edited the books for her (it's Edwin, by the way) and you never see her bring up her assistants when she talks on interviews about how hard she works or how difficult it is to make a webcomic. At this point, Rachel may as well be the Queen of England - all the pomp and reward and credit, with nothing to show for leadership or actual work ethic.

It's not your work we're seeing each week - it's the work of people who are rushing to meet your deadlines, win your awards, and do your homework.

You are the sum of the parts you utilize in your workflow. You are not here purely of your own efforts. It can barely be called 'your work' at this point. Lore Olympus has become the Ship of Theseus - barely recognizable for what it once was after being haphazardly pieced together by the efforts of others.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus

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jackdaw-kraai · 9 months

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Setting aside the fact that you should never critique someone's work without permission and expect them to listen, or feel like you're entitled to criticize someone's work regardless of context or even if a person knows you or not. Setting aside the fact that certain people seem to think they're the divine's gift to mankind and that everything they don't like about someone's creative labor is an affront to them, personally, and the rest of the world too. Setting aside the weirdly combative and confrontational attitude some people get if you decline their criticism, politely or otherwise, and say you do not trust or know them enough to believe they have your best interests at heart or that they understand the pathos of your work. Setting aside all of that...

Too many people don't seem to understand the first thing about what constructive criticism—or even just criticism, period—is and what it has the authority to talk about, and it irks me to no end. Saying you're giving someone critique or are criticizing something isn't just a "I can do whatever I want" permit to say whatever the heck that crosses your mind and tickles your id. You're thinking of an opinion piece, not an actual critique.

The core of critiquing a piece of creative labor, any creative labor, is always, always, to criticize it only on what it is, never on what it isn't. One cannot criticize a story or artwork for something it didn't do and call themselves a good, or even competent critic. It is categorically off-limits to talk about what the results of a creative labor doesn't do and isn't, and likely never intended to do or be if someone's intending to call their writing or talk a critique instead of an opinion piece. It's disrespectful to the artist, it's disrespectful to their own intelligence, it shows a childishly immature understanding, or rather, lack thereof, in what they think criticism is and what role it plays in the ecosystem of creative labor, and it shows a complete ignorance to the distinction between what critics have an authority to talk about and what are the matters of someone's own personal taste.

Criticism, at its core, is an evaluation and commentary on what a piece of creative labor is and attempted to do with the techniques the artist applied or attempted to apply. It looks at whether or not the artist had a thorough understanding of their craft and the history of it when they created their artwork, story, song, or other creative labor, and it looks at—if an artist did have such an understanding, but decided to push the boundaries of the limits of their medium or capabilities—their experiment succeeded or fell short, and if it fell short in any way, what the likely pitfalls were. It does not look at whether or not the results were popular, whether or not they were to the critic's personal taste, and whether or not it did or didn't include what the critic thought it should have.

You can criticize a slow-paced story for poorly utilizing its slower pace and being jarringly incomprehensive when the pace picks up, and you can criticize the author for either failing to understand what makes a slower-paced story work or for neglecting to investigate and experiment with the techniques that create a slow pace. You cannot criticize it for not being a fast-paced story. That is your personal taste, not a failure of the story or an author's technique.

You can criticize a painting for poorly utilizing color theory and composition to the point that its difficult for an audience to understand what's being depicted, and you can criticize a painter for failing to demonstrate why those two skills are important for a painter to develop and use. You cannot criticize a painting for being modern art. That's your personal taste, not a failure of the painting or an artist's technique.

You can criticize a work for dismissing the consequences systemic bigotry have on the oppressed and perpetuating harmful stereotypes and ideas, and you can criticize an artist for not handling such subjects with the necessary care or denying their existence outright. You can criticize art for contributing to the alienation of minorities and furthering their oppression. You cannot criticize art for including those elements in the first place, and for portraying depictions of oppression that you, personally, don't resonate with. Not only is that an incredibly immature stance to take, it demonstrates a fundamental failure of understanding how people experience the world as individuals.

Critique and criticism are intended to examine a work of creative labor for what it is and does, evaluate if it succeeds as such, provide the artist with an outside opinion to asses as objectively as possible the strengths and weaknesses of the results of their creative labor, and furnish an audience with the information necessary to make an informed decision on a work and improve their own techniques if they so choose.

Critique and criticism aren't a cudgel to beat artists into producing works that fit your personal tastes and to shame them if they don't comply with such demands. Shame on you if you've ever used it as such.

Works of creative labor don't need to be popular to be good, and they don't need to be good to be popular. Popularity is a matter of taste, and taste, fundamentally, is immaterial to the critiquing of a creative work.

Critics, good, competent critics, don't concern themselves with taste outside of acknowledging it exists in every person and only an individual is the absolute authority on if a creative work fits within it or not. They critique a work for what it is and does do, not what it isn't and doesn't do. If a work doesn't include a specific element or theme you think it should have, and you say as such in your criticism, you are no longer giving critique on that work, you are stating an opinion. And the artist is fully within their rights to ignore you or call you out on it.

Critiques are the tool by which artists analyze and advance what they do create, not by which they are shamed or pressured into including what they don't.

Whether or not it's popular. Whether or not it fits personal taste. Whether or not it resonates or is alien to the person experiencing it.

Because in the end none of that matters in assessing if a work of creative labor is good at what it is and does. And that, always, is what critics evaluate.

Artists don't serve to please critics. Critics serve to further artists. If your critiques don't do that, or only pretend to do that, you've failed as a critic. And you probably should look into writing an opinion column instead of trying to pass yourself off as a legitimate critic.

#writing #writeblr #artists #art #creations

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 5 months

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Free Rhys Darby ASMR Sources

So @hang-on-lil-tomato got me thinking with their post about Stede Story Time, I did all this research into all the Rhys Darby works and I realised I should probably compile it in case other folks are looking for the same things.

So yeah, I mean, Rhys doesn't do audio books as of yet, but man would that be amazing if he did. So for those of you who want to hear some good 'ol Rhys Darby voice, here's some sources. Please feel free to message me if you have more. ! I'd love to add them, and I'll tag ya :D

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Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet Youtube Compilations

Stede say'd Ed for a full Minute by justagaycatboy

Stede Bonnet being a bitch for 4 + mins by Rae Hamilton-Vargo

Stede Bonnet being the crew's dad for almost 4 minutes by grim weaper

Stede Bonnet screaming for 2 minutes 15 seconds by "Our Flag Means Death"

Stede Bonnet cursing for almost a whole minute by Murder Turtle

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TV or Mini Series

Rhys Darby in Japan (Freevee on Amazon)

So as someone who lived in Japan for a bit, this series is really really fun. It's awkward, and funny and it's almost all Rhys Darby as he's narrating and living the whole damn thing. There are quotes from this show that I use in my every day life, I love it so much.

Short Poppies (Freevee on Amazon)

Considering most of the characters in this show are in fact Rhys Darby, it's a great way to hear his very colourful range. I haven't seen all the episodes, but I find it quite endearing.

Intrepid Journeys (Rwanda) (Youtube/nzonscreen.com)

Ty @hang-on-lil-tomato and @meanmisscharles for this recommendation! I haven't watched it yet but here's the description:

"This Intrepid Journey sees comedian Rhys Darby taking an OE to the landlocked African country of Rwanda. Darby makes a bunch of friends in the markets of capital city Kigali, then heads on a jungle adventure. Far from the New York office of his Flight of the Conchords character Murray, he searches for critically endangered mountain gorillas. Darby is guided by François — a personable and entertaining park ranger, fluent in primate dialect — whose aping gives Darby a run for his money in gorilla impersonation. Darby is quietened by a sombre genocide memorial, and a 200 kilogram silverback."

Stand up

These are pretty self explanatory, wanna hear Rhys Darby talk for an hour or so? Stand ups the way to do it, all the voices you could want and no one interrupting him.

Rhys Darby I'm A Fighter Jet Rhys Darby: This Way Spaceship It's Rhys Darby Night Mystic Timebird

Youtube Shorts/Channels

Rhys' Youtube Channel featuring stand up shorts, sketches, Rhys' playing games and other fun stuff like "The Alone Rangers". All stuff I have to dive into, thanks again @hang-on-lil-tomato!

Movies

Love Birds (Included with Prime Video)

So if you follow @celluloidbroomcloset you have probably heard of Love Birds, and as someone who is totally normal for Rhys Darby, and loves birds and used to do rescue work, I have to day this movie is adorable. It's a really cute love story, and good god Rhys is hot AF. He and Sally Hawkins have amazing chemistry, and you get lots of good Rhys voice...in a romantic setting. I apologize ahead of time to any of you who lose your soul to this movie.

Coming & Going(Freevee)

So I haven't seen this one personally, so I can't speak to it (it's on my list for this week actually!) so I'll update this once I do.. but in the mean time, here's the description:

"When Lee (Rhys Darby), a young, skilled OBGYN who lacks confidence with women, suffers a minor injury that temporarily lands him in a wheelchair, he meets Alex (Sasha Alexander), the girl of his dreams. Convinced she has only paid attention to him because he's in that chair, he stays in it to win her affections well after his injury has healed."

Podcasts

The Cryptid Factor

You're gonna hear more than just Rhys, you'll hear from Dan Schreiber and Buttons (not ofmd buttons) and some other folks occasionally but you get to hear Rhys in his element, which is awesome because he is the goofy nerdy man we all know and love. The Cryptid Factor on Apple Podcasts

You can also go to their patreon and subscribe for free there-- the paid versions have video footage from a lot of shows and some other cool perks including stickers and book clubs and such.

Aliens Like Us

Thank you @hang-on-lil-tomato for this one! I hadn't found it before

General Reference to Works

Here's some overall guides to his various voice works (thank you again to @hang-on-lil-tomato )

--- Anyway -- hope that helps with your Rhys Darby very normalness :D

#rhys darby #how can i get any work done when rhys darby exists #rhys darby asmr #stede bonnet #ofmd #im totally normal about this #Spotify

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cemeterything · 1 year

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last serious post for tonight i promise but i think part of the reason i value critical thinking so much (even though i realize that might come as a surprise if your only knowledge of me as a person comes from here, because tumblr is more of an escape slash stream of consciousness collaborative scrapbook for me than a platform for spreading awareness or teaching and learning tool - no offence to anyone who does use it for that, i just prefer to treat it as a hobby myself) is because i grew up both extremely isolated and controlled and prevented from expressing myself while also watching my parents fall hard down the conspiracy theory pipeline and experiencing the creeping horror of growing old enough to understand that and learning more about the world and being exposed to more people and ideas in it and realizing that my fear and frustration around them wasn't just typical teen angst but an entirely reasonable reaction to their increasing capacity to be very dangerous and untrustworthy people.

and like. i did actually try to pull them back. i wasn't very good at it (partly because i was a kid, and partly because i have my own biases and misconceptions and just plain bad ideas that i'll spend my entire life working on unlearning and trying to be aware and receptive to criticism of) but goddamn it did i fucking try. i tried discussing, i tried debating, i tried arguing back and standing up for myself and others, i tried researching and learning and presenting my counterarguments backed up with actual evidence, i tried to get other people to support me despite lacking much in terms of social skills or confidence or people around me who didn't buy into all the same bullshit, or something equally stupid and harmful. i even read the things they sent me and showed me so i could say "look, i approached this with an open mind and genuine good faith, i reflected on it and i used my critical thinking skills and tried to understand, but this is wrong and it's going to get people hurt. it's going to get you to hurt people."

i grew up knowing that as the closest person to them who hadn't fallen into the same trap of facebook radicalization groups and increasingly deranged and cult-like (and i don't use that word lightly) organizations and communities online i had a responsibility to try to protect people by warning them that my parents have the potential to cause a lot of harm and suffering if nothing else. and i failed. i'm not a trained deprogramming therapist and they probably crossed whatever event horizon ordinary people who aren't professionally taught how to combat that shit could have any chance of pulling them back from long ago. but the one thing i still have the ability to do is not let the same thing happen to me. i refuse to just passively let everything i see and hear fester in my brain until it starts poisoning all my thoughts and interactions with the world and people around me, and i'm still willing to try to encourage others to be aware and critical of everything around them so they don't end up following the same path and ending up unrecognizable to their former selves. i'm not perfect, i've definitely made some very bad mistakes and hurt people in ways i can't and don't want to be forgiven for and have many regrets, but i will never let myself end up like that as long as i have the ability to fight back.

#🐉#lmk if theres any warnings i should tag this with #it doesnt get into specifics but you can probably fill in the subtext

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purposeless-goner · 3 months

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And the power scalers are back at it again on TikTok about Law Vs Blackbeard, I can't do this shit anymore.

Some shit opinions I've seen because apparently people lack critical thinking skills:

"Blackbeard won low diff" (some people watch things with their eyes closed apparently)

"Law doesn't know how to use his df to the maximum efficiency" (not even going to dignify this with a rant)

"law is at the same level that Sanji is" (this is actually an insane take because we're talking about someone who took down a Yonkou and who literally had to step in to save Sanji from Doflamingo in dressrosa)

"law's crew is useless" (they ignored the fight, a fight may I remind people they were forced to engage in, no preparation whatsoever, also, obviously not every crew can be Luffy's crew level, otherwise they wouldn't be the main crew)

"Law is a fraud" (you know you can just not like a character without needing to put the character down or say facts that aren't true )

"Law shouldn't be worth 3billion berries" (no yeah, you're right, technically he should be worth more because of how much his devil fruit is worth in the underworld but obviously they gave him the same as Luffy and Kid to show that Captain wise they're basically at the same level, bounties are nit only about brute strength, Kid is worth that much because on top of defeating a Yonkou with Law he is brutal in his treatment of people, Luffy is powerful AF and always willing to go toe to toe against injustice and the World Government and Law is powerful and also dangerous due to his use of strategy and the knowledge he accumulates and then obviously the fact his df is worth more than his current bounty)

"The op-op would probably be more powerful if someone else had it instead of Law" (oh I'm sorry, are we not watching the same anime and reading the same manga, Law literally can get his fruit to that extent because of his insane level of knowledge of medicine and the human body and because of his resourcefulness and intellect, I don't think there's a better fit for that fruit than Law)

#trafalgar law #heart pirates #trafalgar d water law #one piece spoilers #one piece law #one piece anime #power scaling in one piece is absurd #power scaling

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snowswan-royalehigh · 5 months

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My personal thoughts on Remarried Empress

Hi there! I'm not going into an too much of an in-depth analysis, so please take my words with a grain of salt. I'm going to focus on Rashta's past.

Rashta is a very well written character, she's shown to be naive and innocent, with underlying layers of cruelty and a character development towards greed which is wonderfully executed. However, the fandom refuses to allow her to have nuance to her character.

When the webtoon and novel start off, we already know Rashta is somewhat portrayed as a villainess, and during my first readthrough, I also wanted to sucker punch her in the face. (I would be publicly executed by Sovieshit) But when I reread I realized how much nuance I missed, and some nuance the fandom ignores entirely.

We start off knowing Rashta is a runaway slave. Which already starts us off on a generally sympathetic note, because we can tell she's had some form of a bad life prior to becoming Sovieshit's concubine. We know she has an annoying habit of speaking in third person, she's a crybaby, she's incredibly controlled by her emotions, she lacks critical thinking skills, and she doesn't even know how to read or write.

Rashta is incredibly easily manipulated, she shows that with her interactions with Sovieshit and especially Duke Ergi. Duke Ergi influences almost all of Rashta's moves, such as the Christmas tree wedding dress, which was a huge embarrassment. In defense of Rashta's lack of knowledge, she was a slave. How was she supposed to know about how these things, when she had spent her life, being forced to clean, with no hope of escaping. She hadn't even done anything to become a slave in the first place, she was made one so her father wouldn't have to pay for his crime. She was uneducated as can be. Reading and writing at that time was only for the highborn.

Rashta is confirmed to have had a lot of love for the idea of her children, and she carried that baby to full term. Imagine how mortifying it was when Lotteshu showed her that corpse. (How the hell did he even get his hands on the corpse. We should be focusing on that a lot more) So could we really blame her for running away, Alan abandoned her as well, and Lebetti always treated her like trash.

Rashta undergoes a corruption arc because of the people around her. Navier remarks in her head that Rashta has no one good around her to inform her, in the webtoon.

Now, imagine this situation from the point of view of Rashta. You just saw your supposed dead child with an obvious great amount of trauma via your whole childhood, and now, the emperor, an incredibly powerful man, has proposed to become your lover. He's going to give you protection, and most likely save you from your horrible life. Everyone forgets the power dynamic of these two. Rashta is the lowest in society while Sovieshit is the highest. What terrible consequences would Sovieshit's pretty ass conjure from rejection? Even the webtoon remarks that it's like a fairy tale.

Navier and the rest of the nobles are her enemies, because of how she was raised. She actually started off the webtoon looking up to Navier, and seeing Navier as someone she could basically worship, and believed that Navier would act as a motherly figure although she was greeted with Navier's justifiable pettiness although Rashta didn't know what she was doing wrong.

If Rashta was the protagonist everyone would be gushing about her, because she is manipulative, but so is Navier. The people around Rashta fail her, when she could've been so much more, and she has so much underutilized potential. Rashta would've been incredibly hyped up for kicking Navier out, and Navier would be seen as cold hearted and self centered.

TL;DR, Rashta is still an antagonist, but she is not a straight up villain. She's complex, and she's more human than any other antagonist. She's only hated on for being the 'other woman' and the fandom acts like she seduced Sovieshit for the funsies.

(Fuck Sovieshit, all my homies hate him!!!))

#the remarried empress #Rashta #Sovieshitslander #Characternuance #Nuance #mischaracterization #character arcs #sovieshu #Sovieshu slander

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loverofstufflof · 3 days

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Airing out my LMK trailer/S5 thoughts cause u gotta do this somehow

Most glaring, animation. It’s not bad, by any means. I’d certainly be proud of myself if I were able to come up with it.

However, I think it’s important to consider the context of the show’s style, and how it’s been improving significantly over instalments. Also, it’s Flying Bark. Flying Bark is just gonna make banger animation.

Am I a bit disappointed when comparing it to Emperor’s Wrath? Yeah. Especially when we’ve been waiting a full year for this—twice as long as usual.

But I’m not saying I won’t be watching the show because of it. I still love this story. Fuck, my favourite series is Epithet Erased. The show that’s best described as JPEGs wiggling around your screen for 2 hours. I can handle less than expected animation if it’s made up for by good writing.

I’ve been seeing a lot of people attacking invisible fans that claim they’re going to boycott the show because of this. Respectfully, source? The most aggressive criticism I’ve seen is “man that’s disappointing ig, still excited tho”. Who are you guys even fighting lmao. (Unless this is something happening on other platforms and you’re just venting on here which, valid)

Nevertheless, as I’ve said before, it’s not bad animation, just not up to the standard we’re used to. People are allowed to be disappointed. Let them be. This show isn’t flawless.

It’s looking to be real, all things considered. We’ve never gotten a fan leak this elaborate before, and it contains a lot of elements that were just recently revealed. Unless they’ve been getting announcements much earlier than we have (considering this fanbase’s sleuth skills, I’d doubt it) then there’s no other explanation other than it being official.

Official, however, doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to look that way the whole time. The animation is being done by another studio, yes, but only partially. Flying Bark is still here for the fun. This other studio also isn’t incompetent, they’re behind things like Carmen Sandiego. They know what they’re doing.

They’re also primarily handling additional material, means promotions, meaning trailers. Listen, it’s a bit of a stretch considering the fact that all trailers so far have been taken directly from the show, but also it’s industry standard to make a trailer before you’re even done, meaning you gotta cut some corners for the scenes you’re showing until you polish them up in post.

We know LEGO has a habit of keeping LMK things in their vault until they need to, this may be something they had lying around from early prod and released to maintain hype.

Any which way, this development is very much temporary, only applying because the team is currently working on a movie and need to momentarily lessen their workload. Even if the odds are against us and S5 looks like a PowerPoint presentation, it’ll likely go back to normal later.

Biiig animation rant aside, I am a tad bit sad about the direction the story is going in (namely the abandonment of Red Son) and the fan service is a bit much, but honestly what else are we expecting from JTTW fanfic.

I’m stoked to see more Macaque though—he’s looking to be becoming a proper protagonist, which is great for angst! Yippee!

One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the complete lack of Nüwa. You know, the character they’ve been teasing this whole time? Where is she? Not in the trailer. Not in the posters.

Makes me wondering if this is a part of the new season, teasing the next one, the one Nüwa’s in, later.

#not rereading this for grammar or whatever my phones about to die and I need to post this #get my thoughts out somehow #WAAAA #hope I come across as nonconfrontational here I genuinely just wanna talk #monkie kid #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk s5 #post!

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ausetkmt · 10 months

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Newsweek: Ron DeSantis Accused of Being 'Pro-Slavery' Due to New Florida Curriculum

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is facing new criticism over his state's new curriculum for African-American history in which some say is "pro-slavery."

DeSantis, a Republican who is running for president in 2024, has made his embrace of right-wing social causes a cornerstone of his style of politics. He has decried "woke" education, signing into law requirements about how race can be taught in Florida schools as educators across the United States grapple with conservative efforts to limit discussions of diversity, including African American history, in public schools.

Advocates for more restrictive lessons on race have argued all sides of a political or historical debate should be presented in schools. Critics, however, are accusing DeSantis and other Republicans of attempting to erase the history of slavery, and that students should learn about this topic in its entirety.

This standard has sparked criticism from educational and civil rights leaders, who have accused Florida Republicans of seeking to whitewash the history of slavery.

Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, accused DeSantis of being "pro-slavery" over the educational policy.

"Please keep this simple: If you require schools to teach the 'personal benefits' of slavery you are pro-slavery. Ron DeSantis is pro-slavery," the Democratic lawmaker tweeted on Saturday.

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) July 22, 2023

DeSantis defended the standards when pressed by a reporter, saying that he "wasn't involved" in writing these standards, which were "not done politically."

"I think what they're doing, is I think that they're probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a black smith, into doing things later in life," the Florida governor said. "But the reality is all of that is rooted in whatever is factual."

Newsweek reached out to DeSantis' office for comment via email.

Still, many others also condemned the new standards.

Will Hurd, a former congressman from Texas who is also running in the GOP 2024 presidential primary, tweeted on Friday, "Unfortunately, it has to be said – slavery wasn't a jobs program that taught beneficial skills. It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms."

Unfortunately, it has to be said – slavery wasn't a jobs program that taught beneficial skills. It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.https://t.co/4JjIgeDhKX — Will Hurd (@WillHurd) July 21, 2023

Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), slammed the policy as "disgusting."

"The much anticipated DeSantis reset: Teaching our kids that slavery had its benefits," he tweeted on Friday. "Disgusting."

Vice President Kamala Harris, during a speech at Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.'s 56th national convention in Indianapolis on Thursday, described the standards as an attempt to "gaslight us."

"Just yesterday, in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefitted from slavery," she said. "They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it. We who share a collective experience in knowing we must honor history in our duty in the context of legacy. There is so much at stake in this moment."

#Ron DeSantis Accused of Being 'Pro-Slavery' Due to New Florida Curriculum #florida #desantis lies #gop #white supremacy #systemic racism #revisionist history of america #all lies #american history #Black Lives Matter #Black History Matters

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