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muffinsin · 5 months

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I got a wholesome idea

Cassandra getting injured when she went out to hunt a game to make it into a present for her female s/o, but it suddenly got cold so a Lycan was able to overpower her, her mother went to get her and brought her back injured to the point she couldn’t do anything on her own. Her partner helped her, she fed her, bathe her, changed her and so on. cassnadra though, she was reluctant to accept because she doesn’t want to get babied but she still allowed it because she couldn’t do anything by herself. As it was Cassandra’s bedtime she embarrassedly asks her partner if she could lay on her lap and the partner says of course and she starts playing with Cassandra’s hair while humming her to sleep. (You can decide to add anything else) I hope you don’t mind me being specific again. And thank you for always taking my requests

-Rambunctious anon

I love specific requests! Thank you rambun’! Let’s get into it!😚 relatively long one this time!👀

Masterlist

Cassandra didn’t quite think her plan through. It was the first day of spring, and excitement to be able to hunt again soon had taken her over completely

She hadn’t even considered the possibility of the temperatures dropping again.

A gift was all she looked for, a beautiful one at that. And she was such a skilled huntress, surely the task would be easy for her! She didn’t even bother letting her sisters know she ventured outside and into the forest.

She wandered in the woods for a long time, trying to settle on what to bring her. Her legs hurt after mere moments and forced her to swarm entirely- the forest floor was wet and cold, covered in a layer of snow.

Perhaps a carved out heart from a mighty beast? No, what use could you possibly have for that?

Fur? To keep you warm and healthy. She could skin a varcaloc for you! But then again, you had blankets fluffy and warm already…

A large animal’s head? A boar’s head, maybe! Yes! Surely that would be the perfect gift for you!

Too caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized the temperature dropping until she felt the stringing pain of the cold surrounding her. How long had she been outside?

The sky had turned darker already.

The light breeze was enough to have her bite her lip to stifle her moans of pain.

The tears forming at her eyes at the cold pain burned against her skin- they felt frozen, but she knew they weren’t.

She attempted to swarm, and felt the cold pain pierce her entire body. Out of shock she landed on the ground, screaming as the snow pressed against her through the clothing.

It was so cold!

An inner struggle started out inside of her; calling out to her sisters or not.

She knew her sisters could get Mother or you, who could help her once you two found her. And she really, really wished for nothing more than to be lifted into her mother’s arms, off the cold snow and into warm embrace.

But she was Cassandra Dimitrescu!

Surely she would not need anybody’s help! What a weakling she would be if she called for aid!

Cassandra made her way back towards the large castle, her arms wrapped around herself protectively. She shook and hissed at every little breeze.

Using her thin cloak, she wrapped it around herself like a protective layer. But it barely did a thing, instead merely caused flies to drop to the ground, which she carefully picked up and cupped in her gloved hands

Was she able to see herself, Cassandra would see the blue-greyish colour her lips and ears had adapted

The brunette truly hated the cold!

She kept pushing forwards, and forced down tears the moment they dared slip from her eyes when the wind picked up and light, symmetrical snowflakes fell from the sky.

It was so cold.

She saw the castle in the distance, but it seemed so far away. Could she truly get there?

Cassandra yelled and screamed in pain, so loud it scared off a few crows in the trees and deers that had stuck around, when her legs gave in.

Her eyes widened upon seeing her ankle’s and feet’s dark grey, stony colour and texture. She was sure they would break off any moment.

Cassandra felt fear.

She didn’t want to die, not like this, not just then!

She hissed when she attempted to stand and a part of her ankle broke off, sending her back down in the snow. By then not only her ankles, lips and ears, but also her cheek, cleavage and arms had adopted the sickly grey colour.

She threw her head back, screaming loud.

It was an unusual, banshee-like scream she knew her sisters would hear. It was a scream filled with pain and fear that didn’t suit the brunette.

Just when she was about to let out another call, a growl caught her attention.

Golden eyes set on the lycan circling her. She cursed- she was no prey!

And still, she could only crawl helplessly with her sickle in her hand, unable to rise from the snow. Her gloves barely did a thing.

She felt her nimble fingers hardening and worried for a moment they would fall off.

“Stay, mutt!” She cursed. The dog would not listen. It snarled at her.

Cassandra brought down her sickle when it charged.

And still, her sitting position gave her a huge disadvantage. She screamed when teeth dug into where her neck met her shoulders and ripped out a large chunk of meat.

She screamed even louder when the area started crystallising immediately, the cold unforgiving and harsh

She kept bringing her sickle down on the beast, her arms shielding her face as the creature straddled her. Her legs were useless, she was unable to swarm

Cassandra almost laughed bitterly- would this be her end? Brought upon by a measly lycan?

It didn’t seem so, not if Alcina Dimitrescu had a say in it.

Cassandra’s golden eyes widened when the creature launched itself at her yet again, claws extended and grazing her crystallising cheek just before longer, sharper claws dug through the mutt’s middle.

She breathed out a sigh of relief and let go of the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.

“Mother”, she choked out. Her throat was ice cold and ached painfully. Frozen tears stuck to her cheeks.

The matriarch immediately withdrew her claws, tall hands reaching downwards as she gently picked her middle child up.

Cassandra let out an ear piercing scream as a part of her waist came off, flies breaking off and landing in Alcina’s outstretched palm. She felt hot and cold at the same time, and hard, as though her skin was pulling together.

She barely felt her mother brush frozen hair strands out her face, but felt warm lips connect with her forehead.

She didn’t protest when Alcina pulled her impossibly close, the dragon’s grip tight on her child. Cassandra felt too weak to lift her head, instead resting it against her mother’s warm neck.

Her nose brushed against the woman’s throat, silently begging for a taste of the blood beneath. Alcina granted her this, knowing it would warm her near-frozen daughter.

And yet, when Cassandra slowly and with great effort parted her lips and opened her mouth, she felt too weak to push in her sharp teeth and drink the warm fluid below her mother’s thick skin.

Alcina sighed when she felt the younger woman slump against her, tucking her closer and protecting the brunette with all her might; her hat off her head and perched over Cassandra’s unconscious form, hoping to shield her from the merciless wind.

She would be alright, it wasn’t much farther to the castle.

When the brunette awoke again, she felt too many things at once. She coughed uncontrollably, air barely rushing through her lungs.

Warmth and coldness at the same time, claustrophobia from the thick blankets and arms tightly wrapped around her, fear and embarrassment as she recalled what had happened.

She hasn’t realized how heavy her breaths were until she felt your hand on her cold cheeks. Her breathing calmed, you smiled at her.

The brunette’s cheeks were cut and awfully grey, her neck even more so. Cassandra let out a disoriented whimper as she realised the lack of a choker on her. Had Mother abandoned her for her mistake? She reached up to her cold, cracked throat. Tears nearly swelled in her eyes at the lack of her necklace.

As if reading her mind, you took her hands in yours. They were ice cold and cracked at places. She relaxed when she saw the necklace handed to her and held it tightly against her burning chest.

She coughed again.

“We removed it to tend to your neck, sugar”

Your words made sense. They calmed her.

She looked down upon herself, pulling away the warm, heavy blankets. She wore one of your tank tops, her shoulders and arms cracked and bandaged at places, her entire torso full of bandages. In the gaps between them she saw her own, cracked skin. It made her feel nearly sick to see a hole in her body between one of the bandages.

Her legs were hardly any better. She was put in one of your trousers, warm and comfortable, loose around her skin. Leggings, you had called them once, she recalled.

Her feet were covered by thick socks, although they felt better. Her ankles sported many wrappings around them. She tried not to focus on them; it felt as if they would snap in two should she get up. Her legs and thighs were bandaged and cracked, skin grey and stony. She remembered the lycan’s claws slicing through them.

And lastly her hands, cold and cracked, yet intact. She looked at you, unsure of what to say. “How do you feel?”, you asked instead. She shrugged. Her throat felt so sore and painful, she didn’t feel like talking.

She noted your presence in the room; your clothes laid on her floor from when you must’ve changed, canvas and dried paintings laid on her desk and scattered around it.

For how long had she been passed out on the bed?

Cassandra watched quietly as you climbed into the bed, but eagerly pressed her body against yours. You were so warm…

Golden eyes flashed dangerously for a moment when you pulled your hair to the side and tipped your head, presenting your neck to the brunette. She was starving, and you knew that fully well.

“Have a bite, Cassandra”

She wasn’t sure if it was an offer, request or order, but she didn’t think twice. She barely had enough sense left to hold back from mauling you, instead tried her best to be careful as she dug her teeth in you.

She moaned pleasantly at your warm bloody humming when she felt you pull her closer. The blankets were nice, but she preferred you warming her up. Your arms around her, your warm blood down her throat. She felt it ease the pain inside of it, the roughness of her skin caused by the cold.

Cassandra relaxed further when she felt your fingers running through her dark brown hair, untangling it and gently scratching her scalp

You smiled at the silent purrs you received in response. She was so relaxed around you, it filled you with pride.

She pulled away for a moment, panting as your blood ran down her chin. She feared taking too much. She was never good at holding back, never had been, and didn’t want to risk losing you no matter how her body ached for more of your delicious, warm blood.

You didn’t feel dizzy yet, nor a headache. She could drink a little more.

Cassandra felt you guide her head back to the wound, gently pressing against the back of her head. She licked the wound, a small smile pulling at her lips from your whimper. The sadist couldn’t help it, but you loved just that.

Her silence was worrying, although you were glad her throat was given time to heal. Had it not been for her happy whines when you scratched her scalp, you would have feared her vocal cords were damaged severely.

Cassandra’s eyes felt heavy. She pulled away and made sure to clean your wound before eying you again. Golden eyes slipped close as you used your thumb to clean the blood off her chin. She sucked it clean when it was presented to her and whined when she felt your hand withdrawing from her hair.

“Don’t go”, she croaked out when she was lowered back on the bed, voice raspy and shaky. You smiled at her, pressing a small kiss to the corner of her lips, avoiding tasting your blood on her. “I would never, sugar”

In the next couple of days, even weeks, you were coddling Cassandra to no limit. At first, she was amused at this, believing it was a joke. Her amusement lessened in time.

“I’m not a baby!”, she complained a couple of times a day. She felt frustrated with how slowly her body was recovering. The gashes and slashes of the mutt’s claws couldn’t heal fast as long as her skin was recovering from the cold, which it took its sweet time doing.

And the worst of it all? She couldn’t even move properly, too wary of her ankles. They had improved, and yet when the socks and bandages were removed, they still shone grey and were hard as ice.

She was restless, and annoyed. She wanted out of her bed, too.

For what it was worth, Cassandra liked the bath times she received. Albeit she thought it was unnecessary for Alcina to lift her out the bed and put her in the filled tub, she did appreciate the hot water on her cold skin.

Even more she appreciated your skilled hands massaging shampoo in her hair. And even when she whined in protest each time she was lifted out the tub and put back on her bed, sheets changed into fresh ones, she loved the time that followed after her bath.

You always made sure to keep her entertained, starting with a nice back rub and massage in which you warmed her cold limbs with warm massage oil, ever so mindful of the cracks still adorning her beautiful skin.

Cassandra snickered often as you did this, enjoying your blush whenever she asked, knowingly, how come certain regions of her bare body needed more squeezing and massaging and kneading than others.

After this, she was often entertained by watching you paint. You had attempted reading to her, which Cassandra stopped after mere minutes, restless and bored out of her mind.

She liked whenever you brought Cassandra her weapons too, and when sometimes, when a dish was brought to her, she received some of your blood as dessert.

At night, nightmares often plagued her mind, or her wounds made it difficult to sleep. Cassandra dreaded nighttime.

She eyed you as you climbed into bed, ready to fall asleep with her. She couldn’t stand another night of it! She wanted to sleep comfortably for once! The pillows were either too low or too high, too hard or too soft, her back hurt and she couldn’t rest on her side, worried she would move too much in her sleep and end up causing damage to her already healing body.

You tilted your head at her when she just stared at you blankly.

She frowned, then shook her head, then eyed you again. You knew the signs she unknowingly gave whenever she was about to ask for affection, and stayed quiet, allowing the brunette to take her time.

Eventually, her lips parted and a silent request was spoken.

“Can I sleep on your lap tonight?”, she asked. Her voice was still raspy, but her words sounded less painful.

You smiled, stretching your legs and patting them. “Of course, darling”

She blushed at the love she heard so clearly in your voice, her head resting on your legs. She sighed. Not too hard or too soft, not too high or too low. She growled quietly at the back of her throat, smiling when you set your hand on her head and stroked her hair.

More quiet purrs.

Cassandra felt you pull the blanket upwards, until it covered her plenty and its warmth protected her cold limbs.

“Goodnight, Cassandra”

#cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #resident evil village #rambunctious anon #cassandra dimitrescu x reader

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amirsirwrites · 1 year

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Hello!!! I just came across your blog AND I LOVE IT😭😭😭. I was wondering if you could do the mercs dating a really anxious but cuddly/affectionate s/o? And basically gives their s/o stuffed animals and cuddling with them or something. 💀sorry if this is bad, but I really do enjoy your writings!

Hello! Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my writings! I've just finished your request, sorry for the wait. I hope you like it :)

Mercs with anxious but affectionate S/O ❤️

Requested

Mercs x GN!reader

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Scout :

He finds you so so so adorable. His heart honestly can’t take it when you shyly approach him with your arms open for a hug or give him a little kiss on the cheek. He’ll cuddle you as much as you want and whenever you want, meaning that if you ask for some snuggles in the middle of a battle, he’ll drop everything and go straight to you. Seeing you happy and comfortable makes him feel overjoyed. One day, he thought about how cute you’d look hugging a stuffed toy so he went out and bought you one as a surprise. Needless to say, there have been several times when Scout has caught you taking a nap with the toy and in all those times, he can’t help but squeal silently, “My gawd, how is it even possible for someone to be so sweet!” If you start getting really anxious, he’ll take you to a secluded area, such as your room, and lie down and cuddle with you until you feel better.

Soldier :

At first, he was surprisingly quite embarrassed by all the hugs, cuddles and kisses you give him. He didn’t mind, actually enjoying it a lot, he just wasn’t used to it. After a few weeks, you’ve conditioned him to need a cuddle session every single day. When he’s cuddling with you, he becomes a different person - really calm and quiet, just enjoying the warmth of your embrace. The first few times he asked you to cuddle, he startled you due to his loud voice. He quickly adapted to your anxiety by alwyas lowering his voice down when he’s with you. Also, he will never ever get you a stuffed toy or anything like that because the thought of you hugging it instead of him, fills him with jealousy.

Pyro :

Given that they also love being really affectionate, you two are quite honestly a perfect pair. When you’re both at base, you’ll be in Pyro’s room, cuddling together while they draw. Since you both love all things cute and cuddly, your bed is filled with stuffed toys, big pillows and a nice warm blanket that has, of course, a unicorn print on it. They really love it when you give them kisses, it makes them feel all giddy with happiness, butterflies in their stomach. And, no need to worry, because they know how to calm you down if your anxiety is acting up since they can get anxious too sometimes. In summary, your relationship is so sweet that one could taste it.

Demoman :

He really enjoys your affection and reciprocating it. There’s just one thing he likes to do that bothers you a bit which is teasing you, “Aww, you want some love, my cute lil cookie?” It makes you quite flustered. He’ll stop if you start getting really uncomfortable though. If you feel like getting some hugs while in battle, he’ll carry you in his arms while still continuing to launch bombs at the enemies. When your anxiety really starts acting up, he’ll sit down with you and hold your hands, speaking softly to you, “It’s alright, love. Focus on me, alright?” He’ll give you some forehead kisses while rubbing the top of your hands with his thumbs. After you calm down, you two will just cuddle together for a while.

Heavy :

He’s quite flustered whenever you show him affection. It’s something he’s really not used to, he loves it though. When you snuggle up to him while you two are lying in bed together, he’ll blush slightly and hold you close, whispering, “Любимая моя..” He’s against cuddling while in battle because he thinks he might get distracted and fail to protect. However, he doesn’t mind giving you a piggyback ride while he goes around gunning down enemies with Sasha. Knowing how much you love cuddling, if you start getting really anxious, he’ll give you a big hug and stay like that until you’re feeling better. He heard that stuffed toys can help with anxiety so he bought a bunch just for you. Seeing you cuddle with them makes him smile.

Engineer :

He is just like you and by that, I mean he loves being affectionate. Tons of hugs, kisses, hand-holding and every other kind of physical affection you can imagine every single day. He’s overjoyed that you love giving him all that as well. One thing you do that he really likes is when you hug him from behind while he’s working on something in his workshop, it’s comforting for him. Having an anxiety attack? Leave it to him to calm you down quickly. He’ll put on some soft piano music and slow dance with you until you’re smiling once more. If you’re going to sleep or take a nap, he’ll be sure to join you. Being wrapped up in each other’s arms is very pleasant for both of you.

Medic :

Before he met you, he never craved any kind of physical affection from anyone. The first time you gave him a kiss on the cheek, he froze for a second, “Oh.. danke, mein Täubchen.” That was the moment he realised how pleasant physical affection is. After a while, he eventually got used to showing you affection too. He still gets a bit flustered when you cuddle though so when you snuggle closer to him, you might hear him chuckling shyly. As you might have already guessed, he already knew about anxiety and how to deal with it before meeting you so he’s very good at calming you down during an attack. Overall, he loves the affection but is quite shy about it sometimes.

Sniper :

Okay, now this man… He turns absolutely red and speechless when you get all affectionate with him. He’s touch-starved so he loves the all the touches but since he’s just as anxious as you, he gets really flustered. He’s not a fan of PDA so you won’t hug or kiss him too much when you’re infront of others. However, when you two are alone together, he’s happy to receive all your love and give his in return. He’ll wrap around you tightly and rest his face against the top your head. He really likes it when you caress his back gently when you’re cuddling, it makes him feel safe and comfortable. Trust me - you won’t be needing any stuffed toys or whatnot, Sniper will be here to accept all your cuddles. As for your anxiety, he knows exactly what it’s like so he’ll usually take you to a place with a lot of nature, like a forest and you two will just lie on the ground and listen and watch the wildlife around.

Spy :

Now, this is an interesting new experience for him. He’s not shy about it, in fact, he’s delighted that you’re so affectionate. He quickly adapted to your more cuddly way of showing love - frequently giving you light kisses, wrapping an arm around your waist, holding your hand, etc. He finds cuddling with you to be a pleasure. Snuggling against your chest / the crook of your neck is one of his favourite things to do when you two are cuddling. The warmth from your embrace soothes him very much. Helping you with anxiety attacks is definitely not his strong suit though. However, he tries his best. Whenever you’re having one, he’ll sit down with you, hold your hands gently, and whisper comforting phrases to you until you’re feeling better.

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'Любимая моя..' - My darling.. (Russian)

'Danke, mein Täubchen.' - Thank you, my dove. (German)

#tf2 mercs x reader #gender neutral reader #tf2 scout #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 demoman #tf2 heavy #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #tf2 headcanons

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t34-mt · 1 year

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How is the Vexology of the Manuel and kyhuine?

i was craving to mention flags some days ago so this is awesome ( for those who don't know cause I didn't either, vexillology is the study of flags)

Flags are not really a thing for maanuls and kyhuines, they do not feel the need to have a flag to assemble everyone in x region under a single piece of tissue, they kind of see it as a way to just divide their own species by creating a weird nonsensical pride for a flag that supposedly represents them all, when within a single region there are various cultures and subcultures, and nomadic groups. They see their species as like a network of mycelium roots(? idk if that sounds clear), that they can connect to each other no matter where they're from. So the thing of belonging to a flag would feel like an unnecessary barrier

They already don't have no borders so flags? i don't think that would fit them. But colonies do have symbols that translate to where they're from, by that I mean an example is on stustumali's botanist gear. a flat wooden piece with one side saying for example "west", flipping the piece there is the specific name of the colony they're from.

That's something maanuls that go out of the colony for x reason have, kyhuines can use a specific rock only found in their region, a little wooden symbol which is either a plant, animal, or mythical animal that shows they're from x colony that uses that as their little emblem thing which is the closest thing to an actual flag.

But that doesn't mean flags never existed in the history of altuyur! they did appear once, tho unfortunately they appeared in GA for the worst reason: Propaganda. The propaganda of kaar'kchir used a distinct flag to be impactful, and the red troupes seeing how effective it was adapted the same technique. And it did work well,it added to the impactful imagery and made their campaigns more aggressive.

The flag of kaar'kchir section 4 (GA)

now forgive me it's my first time trying to draw the flags correctly so it's not perfect as I'm not specialized in that. But this is the flag created after tamtam became captain of section 4. harboring their distinct color. Compared to the red troupes, they're easily spotted from far because of the green, while the red of the red troupes can hide them a bit in certain biomes.

The flag of the red troupes.

When the council appropriated the north star to use it as a focal symbol in its propaganda it harmed what the north star was about in the first place, for a while during the silver age people were too scared of using that symbol anymore. before had more meaning to it than being related to some terrible group of GA. it was a symbol of myth, power, and wonder for the world around them. But with time, they detached its connection from GA and started reusing them like they used to in their culture. But they still can't put a north star on a single red background with nothing else, that just calls back to the red troupes flags.

Devious branch of Kllte (timsitkah)

Now that's not a flag for a brainwashed military faction like the two above (section 4 and red troupes), but they still used the imagery of having a flag so people would notice them more, if their symbol was "tagged" people would know who did this. Tho they decided to use a square flag to stand out from the rectangle ones.

Now Ktlle is an anti-war, pacifist movement created during GA as a response to the war. Ktlle uses blue clothing to be recognized but does not use flags as they associate that with section 4 and the red troupes. But a devious branch of it ,"timsitkah", led by Äme and Satmuh, who had enough of ktlle not acting started to use violent methods to fight off section 4 and the red troupes. While them using violence is understandably justified when it comes to fighting against military oppresing factions, they still got banned from ktlle because ktlle did not accept any use of brutality in their group as they wanted to continue traditional philosophical rules of the two species, that any violence equals stupidity and spiritual blindness. That banned devious branch left, and then made up their own faction on their side, with a flag/symbol (the timsit worm), thus is how Timsitkah was created.

Although the start of timsitkah was quite messy, and unorganized. It had people in their rank wanting that wanted to use radical tactics, these people were mostly made up of teens and sub-adults that would do acts of literal vile terrorism, using kunsip (a section 4 invention, equivalent of gunpowder) in the name of timsitkah. While these people would get quickly shut off from timsitkah when these accident would happen, section 4 and the red troupes would use the terrorism accidents for more propaganda. Saying that timsitkah is all filled with violent terrorists that would kill civils in the name of their illogical ideologies. Which is completely hypocritical of section 4 and the red troupes to say. but its propaganda, so yeah it will always be stupid.

Ktlle is a full pacifist faction, and Timsitkah wants pacifism to come back AFTER fighting off section 4 and the red troupes and thus going back to times like AOS (tho that new age after GA gets called SA). Timsitkah will not hesitate to kill a member from any of the two military factions, in its ranks it had spies for section4/red troupes. But in the section 4/red troupes there was also spies for Timsitkah, notable people that did that are Qua'tuli (spy the red troupes) and Kaasim (spy in section 4)

thank you for reading i hope you liked my answer :)

#section 4 #red troupes #kllte #devious branch kllte #history #altuyur #worldbuilding #digital art #2023 #ask #txt #there are flags down there #xenofiction

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dreamglcw · 1 month

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Welcome to dreamglcw!! a blog for midnightfms and penned by Liz ( 21+, cst ). Template credit to: sup_edits. Introducing . . . M O O N C H A E Y O U N G . . .

Moon Chaeyoung, 28 year old single mother, resident of yuseong. Receptionist at Hanhwa Resort. For more information click here.

🐇 answer the following prompts, either ooc or ic!

when did your muse first arrive in yuseong bay? Chaeyoung arrived a year ago from the capital with nothing more than a broken heart and a baby on the way, a small bag with her clothes and barely enough money to find a place to stay. a runaway looking for a place to belong, for a place to raise her kid, a place to call home...and now a year later she can proudly say she did. yuseong bay became her home when her own gave her the back.

what does an average day look like for your muse? Her days always start early, between tending to her son and preparing to work it is safe to say that mornings are chaotic in the small home, but somehow it always works. she then leaves her son with the older woman who welcomed into her own home not so long ago to. "It's good to have company" the elder always assured her each morning, grateful for something to do, loving the kid as a grandchild of her own before shooing Chaeyoung away. Goodbyes always last long so she has to rush to the bus station and to the Hanhwa Resort where she works as a receptionist. A perfect smile and welcoming aura until the time to go home comes. With tired steps she picks her baby up and makes their way back home, filled with laughter and babbles that soon will be words. It is hard, but oh so perfect.

where can your muse usually be found? Chaeyoung is easily found at the andante cafe, be it on her way to work or on her way back home, needing an extra pump of sugar to make it through the day. Aside from it, she is more of a homebody, enjoying the simple life in the small apartment with her son or in the park nearby.

how does your muse feel about hanhwa resort? Grateful, that is the first word that comes to mind to Chaeyoung when thinking about the resort as it is the place that puts a roof over her head and feeds her baby.

is there an aspiration for your muse to stay in or leave yuseong bay? Yuseong bay has slowly become a home for Chaeyoung and from what she has seen she hopes it will be a permanent home for Jisung, her kid. So, she dreams of affording a better place, bigger, to home the family she build here.

🐇 answer the following, ooc!

list your muse's three favorite songs. To my youth - Bol4 She's in the rain - The rose The swan lake - Tchaikovsky

describe your muse's wardrobe. Comfort over fashion. As a single mother she prioritizes clothes that would be used in more times and that she wouldn't mind dirting rather than the previous style she would have used as a teen. Though her uniform is a diferent side, always prim and proper, no wrinkle in sight acompanied with a styled hair.

what is a color, word, and emoji that you feel describes your muse? white, stubborn, 🥀

three strong likes and dislikes for your muse. likes: classical music, sweet drinks and food, animals dislikes: smell of smoke, her parents, sourness

three positive and negative traits for your muse.

+resilient +adaptable + affectionate

-detached -volatile -mistrustful

three talents and shortcomings for your muse. ballet, she was once a runner up for the national ballet and it's still in her bones, she has an affinity for languages and can easily pick them up with just a bit of practice, emboidery is a new one she has recently discovered as her kid ventures in the first steps. shortcomings: after everything that happened, she has trust issues with those surrounding herself and her son, friendships are now hard to form and mantain and her stubborness shines brighter than the sun from day to day.

what is a book/tv series/movie/video game character that you feel your character relates to? (you can include who you would say they're alike, and who they would say they're alike.) tba

a relevant goal or arch for your character to overcome. search / find peace. She is still too hurt by the ghosts of her past and the fire of anger has yet to fade, she is in search for a home while still thinking bitterly of the word. Chaeyoung has a lot to unpack before reaching that destination but one day maybe she will finally open once again to the world and not just one or two people around her.

🐇 B I O G R A P H Y.

Born with a silver spoon, Chaeyoung is the only daughter and was the heir to the Moon Empire. Ever since she was a baby whatever she wanted she got without even having to ask for it, as a child her room had been filled with toys and during her teenage years her closet had been filled with brand names only. It was a dream life for many, yet in exchange of all those luxuries she was expected to be the best, another thing for her parents to boast about, and she played her part really well.

She became interested in ballet at a young age and it became her whole world. Her eyes sparkled and her mother was more than happy to sign her up in a prestigious academy for it. Chaeyoung dived into that world while keeping her academics as top of her classes, sleepless nights with private tutors came and went but it was worth it in her eyes as she got to compete in the Asian Grand Prix and other competitions earning the attetion of the Korean National Ballet. She was doing wonderful in this new place slowly rising ranks until she became the first dancer, the prima ballerina of the National Ballet and that is when her dreams came crashing down.

She was pregnant.

And she was on her own, the father of the baby was gone and so were her supportive parents who claimed she was a shame to the family once they found out. With nothing more than what she could carry on her bags, Chaeyoung left that life behind moving to Daegu to start again, just her baby and her.

...1 year later.

Chaeyoung pregnancy ran smoothly thanks to a neighbor that took care of her and treated her as if she was her own daughter, the caring mother she never had. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy Jisung who is now almost 1. Even if she struggles with her work, her home is always filled with love.

🐇 P E R S O N A L I T Y.

The Chaeyoung of today is very different from the one during her teen years. The girl who never had to work for anything is now working any job she can, learning new things that can be done at home so she can work while staying close to her baby. long gone is the childish chaeyoung replaced by one driven by love, one that never gives up. her fingers are pricked from her work as a seamstress for the theater but she takes pride in them. A bit emotional detached, takes long to earn her trust and for her to open up, keeps new people at arm's length afraid they would leave her again.

#yshqs:intro #super long i am so sorry #pinned post

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sleepingdeath-light · 4 months

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blind human s/o hcs ; hunter

requested by ; 🍜 anon (09/01/23)

fandom(s) ; the owl house

fandom masterlist(s) ; main | hunter only

character(s) ; hunter wittebane

outline ; “Hello there! May I request hunter (toh) with a blind human s/o? You can choose if they were born blind or if it was an accident that happened in the demon realm for some of that sweet, sweet added angst.(≖ᴗ≖) — 🍜 Noodle Anon”

warning(s) ; references to injury, but mostly fluff!

note ; i am no longer accepting requests for this character.

if you were born blind…

it’s possible that hunter didn’t even notice your blindness until the two of you got extremely close or until you/luz brought it up around him — after all, as the golden guard he didn’t exactly pay attention to the intricacies of his enemies beyond what it took to fight you and, after that, you were so adjusted to it that he didn’t have much chance to notice it

(well, beyond maybe if you were reading a braille book or using text-to-speech on your phone around him and he realised — though, then again, hunter can be rather oblivious at times)

he still sticks close to you when you’re fighting or just out and about but his protectiveness and presence isn’t overwhelming or anything like that — he’s only really there to keep away any risks that you didn’t notice (e.g. a spell thrown your way when you were distracted by another person you’re battling, or a toddler running in front of you too quickly for you to course-correct around safely without his intervention)

though, still, he mainly just leaves you to your own devices (he knows you’re enough of a badass on your own — you beat him plenty of times, after all — so his only job is to be your backup or bag carrier)

if you became blind due to an injury in the isles recently…

hunter becomes much more protective over you than he would be otherwise as you learn to adapt to your new disability — never being too far from you as you adjust your routines, hobbies, and training to work better for you

he feels a great deal of guilt about not being there to protect you and prevent your injury and, as a result, becomes much shorter with people who treat you unkindly

(e.g. threatening a demon who scolded you for accidentally bumping into them or giving a very unsettling glare to some young witches who went to trip you when they noticed your cane)

he sticks beside or behind you at all times, even when you’ve had a cane crafted or a seeing-eye animal assigned to you, because he’s petrified of you getting hurt or targeted somehow — this fear slowly fades away as you become more confident and adjusted to your blindness, but even years down the line you’ll always find hunter close by when you’re out and about as a couple

he also looks into different accommodations from the human realm that luz has mentioned before — things like braille typewriters and label makers — and will incorporate them into your daily life to make things as easy as possible for you

either way / behaviours he adopts no matter the origin of your blindness….

though it’s a bit of a struggle at first (and he’s not the most fashion-conscious person out there), with the help of your friends hunter slowly becomes an expert at helping you construct the outfits you want to wear — describing each item in detail as he brings it to you, making sure that everything is being worn correctly (i.e. not inside out), and that it suits the style you want to go for that day

if you use a seeing-eye/guide animal then he’s going to make a habit quite quickly of carrying treats for them on him wherever you are — even doing as much research as he can to make sure that they can get a taste of whatever meal you’re both eating without getting sick (he spoils them rotten, quite frankly)

if you use a cane/other inanimate aid, then he’s going to make it his mission to carve/craft you the perfect aid — something that’s the perfect length (but that can also be extended when needed), that has a grip with a texture that isn’t off putting whilst also being difficult to lose grasp of by accident, that is designed in a way that is practical whilst also being suited to your personal style and the life you live, and that can be put away easily and that can be recalled by you when it’s needed (a simple enchantment or glyph or spell should do it — he’ll brainstorm a bit with luz and king the next chance he gets)

even though he knows well just how capable of a person you are, he’s still got a distinct protective streak that isn’t going away anytime soon and he will not tolerate anyone (be they human, demon, or witch) treating you poorly because of your disability — he doesn’t believe you should have to handle all of those conflicts, but he’ll back off if asked and hold your stuff while you give them a very stern talking to or a black eye

(that part is up to you but he’ll support you either way)

#sleepingdeath #🍜 anon #gender neutral reader #blind reader #fluff #fluff hcs #toh fluff #hunter wittebane fluff #toh hunter fluff #hunter toh fluff #the owl house fluff #the owl house x reader #toh x reader #toh hunter x reader #hunter toh x reader #hunter wittebane x reader

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fzzr · 1 year

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There Can Never be Another Anime Like Legend of the Galactic Heroes

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes, henceforth "LOGH") is a 1988-1997 OVA series adapting the novel series of the same name. At 110 episodes, it's the longest anime I have ever watched outside the interminable shonen like Dragon Ball. Rather than a source of Saturday morning spectacle or vehicle to sell you the next round of merch, LOGH is literature. In this regard, it is Perfect In Every Way That Matters.

Plot

LOGH tells the story of the end of the 150 year long war between the Galactic Empire and Free Planets Alliance. The Empire is a germanic/nordic flavored monarchy that only doesn't call itself the Fourth Reich because everyone has forgotten about its predecessors. The Alliance was founded on freedom and equality and all that jazz but practically speaking it dedicates all excess production to the military, with social welfare a distant afterthought.

There are far, far too many characters to go over here, but the key ones are the foremost military minds of each side. The Empire's strategic military genius is Reinhard von Lohengramm. By his side is Siegfried Kircheis, his childhood friend and moral compass. Together they are motivated with a passion like wildfire to end the unjust system of the Empire and bring it and the Alliance both under Reinhard's command. The Alliance's answer to Reinhard is the tactical magician Yang Wen Li. He is only in the military at all because that's the only way to pay for an education - his sole ambition is to reach a rank that offers a good enough pension to live on, then retire and fulfill his dream of being a historian. He is accompanied by Julian Mintz, his ward and our window into every corner of the military system.

I say "each side," but LOGH features far more than a binary conflict. Each polity is internally fractured, with multiple forces rising and falling over the course of the story. To name a few: the aristocratic Goldenbaum dynasty, the economic powerhouse Phezzan, the Earth Church, and the Alliance civilian government all spend time as antagonists for one or both of our protagonists.

Against this vast backdrop, we watch how countless choices made by many individuals weave together into a story about war, politics, and the things people do to other people in those pursuits. At times you may think you know where things are headed, but from battle tactics to strategic and political twists and turns you will never find the path itself predictable.

Politics

It is impossible (and undesirable) to talk about LOGH without talking about its politics. LOGH is not afraid of putting political speeches in its characters' mouths, and it certainly has some opinions to share.

At the beginning of the story both the Alliance and the Empire are deeply corrupt in their own ways. The Alliance is a democracy faced with increasing political violence and authoritarian character. The Empire is ruled by a monarchy and aristocracy with no connection to or empathy for its subjects, where the only real way to move up as a commoner is through the military. Both sides' great military leaders are aware of the need for reform. While Reinhard seeks to bring it about with his own hands, Yang considers using drastic means to be so antithetical to those goals that it's worse than the status quo.

Pacifism and nonviolent resistance are presented as highly honorable but ultimately futile in the face of force used by those with no empathy for its victims. It doesn't matter how many elections you win if the KKK with a different color scheme can keep your politicians in hospitals or graves while police are ineffectual at best. No number of strongly worded complaints will keep soldiers from burning your house down if you resist their occupation. Even economic warfare, no matter how intricate and subtle, may ultimately fail when faced with the barrel of a gun.

This is a war story, and there are many honorable masters of the profession of arms among its protagonists. The central philosophical argument among them is when and how it is moral to use force. At the beginning, the rulers of both sides see military force as a tool to be used without consideration, dispassionately throwing away millions of lives for marginal gains or even pure political expediency. LOGH doesn't shy away from depicting war crimes, from torturing prisoners of war to willfully starving or slaughtering civilians. It also never fails to show the consequences of such actions, on both the moral character of those who carry them out and on their long term strategic objectives.

There are many explorations of democratic and autocratic forms of government. It has particular disdain for religion as a political force, either as a theocracy or just as a tool for cynical politicians. The Empire was founded on I-can't-believe-it's-not-fascism-because-it-literally-is-complete-with-eugenics. The Alliance is nominally based on the ideals of a government for and by all people. LOGH looks into the forms democracy can take, and how a democracy can be no better than an autocracy when taking lived results into account. Autocracies in turn are assessed not blindly for being of undemocratic nature but also for the results of their rule, good or ill.

The ultimate political message of LOGH is that a government which is disconnected from its people has no legitimacy, no matter what form it takes, and is invariably doomed to failure and collapse. It is the responsibility of the people to make that a reality - to take hold of their own sovereignty, and keep it.

Conclusion

Score: Legend of the Galactic Heroes is 10/10. It is one of the greatest stories ever told in the medium, and the questions it asks are as important as they are unsubtle.

Recommendation: Just about everyone should watch LOGH, time allowing. It is less than half the length of the current entirety of the MCU, and still has more minutes worth watching (haha gottem). Watch it two episodes a week over the course of a year and change if you want - but I'll bet money once you get started you won't want to wait that long. The only caveats are it does not shy away from blood and guts (with a number of on-screen suicides) and it has some language that's not acceptable today, so steer clear if those are dealbreakers for you.

Comparisons

It's hard to think of any worthy anime comparison for LOGH (and I'm saving a few for later) so let's look at something else - Star Wars. The first novel was written in the wake of The Empire Strikes Back, and most of the series was published after Return of the Jedi. It has giant spherical space stations with superweapons on them, fleet battles among capital ships and fighters, speeder bikes, the works. Even the energy weapon sound effects even seem to be based on if not directly sampling those of Star Wars. Hell, the opposing sides are literally called the Empire and the Alliance.

To narrow down the comparison, let's look at their respective giant spherical space stations - Iserlohn Fortress and the Death Star. Iserlohn seems almost like a direct answer to the Death Star in the details of its design. First of all, it's not a planet cracker, but rather a defensive emplacement on a critical choke point. It's designed to withstand a siege indefinitely. As such it's properly a habitat, with a civilian population in the families of the soldiers stationed there and due attention given to that. It has a radius less than half that of the DS1, but different scifi handwaving means its volume is dedicated to support rather than weapons systems. In lieu of solid armor or an energy shield that might be deactivated, its surface is self-healing "liquid metal" that obscures any potential weak point. Given the station's immobile nature, the Thor Hammer superweapon components float on the surface and are aimed by physically moving around. Secondary weapons likewise can be surfaced and moved where ever they are needed to concentrate fire. Like the Death Star, it can dock an entire fleet, but it has no conveniently visible docking bays to be targeted to deal with that issue. Both the Death Star and Iserlohn Fortress are well-designed for the story their creators wanted to tell, it's just that the stories in question required the Death Star to be super cool looking and Iserlohn to be full of details to be used in multiple tactical and strategic scenarios.

So how do they compare in total? Star Wars has better spectacle and of necessity more aggressive pacing, but when it comes to telling a story they're not in the same galaxy (pun absolutely intended). A New Hope is 121 minutes long. LOGH takes that much time (almost exactly!) to get set up for its own infiltration of a giant spherical space station, which starts toward the end of episode 6. Don't get me wrong, A New Hope is a masterpiece in its own right and one of the most groundbreaking films ever made (don't @ me). LOGH is just better all around at nearly everything but spectacle, and it's no slouch in that department either.

Final Thoughts

I got this far without talking about the music because for once it truly doesn't matter. The openings and endings are slow and thoughtful, feel free to skip them if they're boring to you. The background music would feel at home in a symphony hall (and some is actually just pre-existing classical music). No notes here, it's a good match for what the series is and lands where it needs to land.

#legend of the galactic heroes #anime #ginga eiyuu densetsu #anime recommendation #original post

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eponastory · 24 hours

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Hey, saw the post where you think Aang is not suitable to be with anyone, and I...kind of agree. I mean, even though Bryke royally screwed up his character like a mother-effer, he's still fictional...and in the words of every person who likes somebody, but sees their dark side, "I can fix him!". XP But yeah, no, in the show, he's really just a shitty self-insert, the worst kind...gosh, I feel like everyone is brainwashed and accepting Aang's idiotic decisions in the comics and all the other crap media that relates to the original show.

But mark my words! The LA version of Avatar: The Last Airbender WILL BE BETTER than the cartoon! And people will know that soon. So get your nostalgia glasses off, Avatar 'fans', cause we gettin' real with this version. Meaning, your cartoon wasn't perfect, it wasn't flawless, it wasn't even epic! It was just a generic show, up when it reached season 3, and that's when it all went downhill. Yeah, I'm salty over the fans, bada-bing-bada-boom! XP

But yeah, even though Aang is played by an actual person, would you say that you like this Aang better than the cartoon version of Aang? Not because it's played by a real person, but maybe because this version of Aang is the REAL Aang that was needed in the cartoon? :O

Absolutely on all counts.

See, when it comes to animation, writers can get away with a lot of tropes and goofy things because it's a different kind of media. When it comes to acting out those goofy things and tropes, it is really hard for a human being to act in the exaggerated manner characters do in animation. That being said, this does lend more of a human connection to LA adaptations, and I also think that's why a lot of adaptations do fail. NATLA has a lot of work cut out for it, but I do think they have the right cast and made the right changes to reflect that. This is why it's getting a lot of heat from OG fans because they seem to forget that animation is hard to adapt. For what it's worth, I do think the show did a good job for the first season. It works. It definitely has some cosmetic and storytelling flaws, but I don't think it completely ruins it.

Looking at you, 2010 disaster.

I do love Aang in the LA because he is much less naive and actually more grounded, which is a plus.

But I do think the show would benefit from not having the romantic subplot of season 3 or the whole series in general. They did well in season 1 with the developing friendships, and I hope it stays that way. Otherwise, I think we will have the same problems that we had in the OG.

BTW Sokka and Suki being very awkward and cringy in the LA is exactly what happens when teenagers meet each other. If you don't remember those days, it's probably because you were born after Facebook was invented.

#I remember the days of Myspace and actual dating #netflix atla #netflix avatar #atla

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limeinaltime · 2 years

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Okay okay hear me out I am rotating Jean Jacket in my head and while I am kinda sick of sequels, I really want to see more of her species in one of Peele’s future works (at least, a different movie/story in a different location where the stakes and environment would lead to different hunting patterns and adaptations which would then force the new cast to adapt as well or maybe just die idk) so here I am throwing my midnight-fueled brain jam out onto the internet wheeeeee

(Warning for slight spoilers)

- There’s a melanistic variant because that would be cool as fuck. Imagine a black UAP coming out of the sky like a black hole and eating you. Yikes.

- There’s smaller variants, ranging from the size of a large butterfly that sucks up insects and has a pearly appearance, to ones small enough to eat household pets. I’m sure rich weirdos on the dark web would sell them behind the scenes for a pretty penny (imagine having your own pet UFO lol), but good luck explaining to your local neighborhood why their pets have started to vanish.

- Certain species have bioluminescence, which mostly lights up at a defense mechanism or in certain cases, to camouflage against the night sky. People who claim to have been abducted by UFOs simply set off a UAP, but got lucky enough to be dropped, in which their concussed brains imagined being visited by aliens from another planet. Due to light pollution, this form of camouflage has become less effective.

- Some UAPs can grow to tremendous size, and any aerial crafts that enter their territory and look into those giant eye-mouths are good as gone.

- Aquatic variants, because why not. They turn upside-down when they feed, forming a whirlpool that sucks in everything in its path, from fish to unlucky vessels.

- The Bermuda Triangle could be a possibly feeding ground for a very big, very old UAP (electronics start malfunctioning, everything that enters vanishes forever, the setting is almost too perfect)

- Honestly any place where things mysteriously vanish could be a UAP’s territory in the Nope universe.

- While primarily carnivorous, they will suck up dirt and silt and eat the minerals inside, which is why most UAPs are seen in deserts or dry areas with lots of dirt and rocks. They often seek out salt pans due to the abundance of salt and other minerals (and maybe the odd tour group or two).

- UAPs age very slowly upon reaching adulthood. Any scars or chinks in its body can also indicate whether or not a UAP is old or not, but a surefire means of identifying age is unknown and currently impossible to achieve.

- Can either reproduce asexually or form pairs, usually during the warmer seasons every decade, maybe more. The males are usually in their opened, eldritch monster form and do elaborate displays where they sway that green frill around in hypnotic patterns and make themselves look at big as possible. It’s different from the snappy, quick pattern Jean Jacket was flashing in the movie. These rituals happen high up in the atmosphere where humans cannot see them.

- Pairs usually only stick together for the gestation period. The male brings food and drives off threats, but once the eggs are laid, the male dips and moves on until the next season.

- The eggs form a thick mucus coating that allows it to attach to the female in a sticky protective sac that insulates heat and provides nutrients. The female can’t hunt during this time, so she has to eat a lot beforehand in order to last long enough to see parenthood through.

- The sac explodes and the babies attach to the parent, only occasionally detaching and floating around. The residue from the egg sac is known as star jelly. Animals can eat the jelly, which is why DNA traces from said animals usually end up on it.

- The infants look like disk-shaped jellyfish upon hatching, but their bodies become more matte and tough as they get older. They fully detach from mom after about 3-4 years, but still remain close for protection from other wildlife. They start out the size of Frisbees, then grow to about the size of a small car, then eventually reach the size Jean Jacket is in the movie, in which they leave to seek out their own territory, or are driven out by the parent.

-The species only reproduces once (maybe twice if lucky) in their lives, so they are very protective of their young until they reach adulthood, even if many of the offspring die before their bodies harden, with only a small fraction of the many small babies surviving, and even less making it to adulthood and independence. The stakes in Nope would’ve somehow been raised of Jean Jacket had babies. There also could’ve been a theme about how baby animals (and kids as well) are usually exploited then get tossed aside for new ones once they reach adulthood/teenhood and stop being “cute”.

- I’m imagining that Jean Jacket is a descendant of the UFO from the Roswell Incident (which in real life was most likely debris from a weather balloon or something), a parallel to How OJ and Em are descendants of the unnamed man on the horse. New Mexico is just a state over from California, after all.

- Jean Jacket is the typical textbook UAP, and I headcanon her to be around the age of a young adult, hence all the aggression towards those who pose a threat to her territory and inexperience when living around humans. Since most UFOs are usually claimed to be metal, I’m assuming that they’re usually kind of shiny or maybe iridescent (to tie in that sea creature vibe), which is why I do headcanon that Jean Jacket is a female variant of her species (emphasis on headcanon) due to her more matte, sand-colored appearance.

-The little nick on her edge is due to another encounter with another member of her species that ended in conflict, due to an accidental trespass on an older UAP’s turf, or maybe in an attempt to fight another member of her species for a another spot.

- She was born the gulch, and and her mother left due to the increase in human activity (The Haywood ranch, Jupiter’s claim, etc.) Upon reaching adulthood, Jean Jacket made the journey back to the gulch, and since the Haywoods (mostly OJ since the dad gets killed eventually and Em was hardly around during that time) were so chill and not inclined to look at her, she just decided to stay there. Animals usually return to their birthplace since they know it’s a safe place to have babies, so she just thought that with the abundance of food, open space, and non-threatening neighbors, it was a good place to settle down in and do what animals do. At least until Jupe fucked up and set her off. God damnit, Jupe.

- Idk what scientific classification UAPs would be in; JJ is shown to be capable of the kind of intelligence found in most hunting carnivores, but looks a lot like jellyfish when unfurled. They also don’t seem to have a visible spine. My best guess as this point would be a very weird flying, intelligent echinoderm, or maybe an entirely new classification of creature entirely.

- Like all wild animals, the UAPs are very unpredictable and dangerous and should never be domesticated, tamed or approached unless with intent and a steady will in the event of intending to break one. But when witnessed from a same distance, they can be just as majestic as any other predator.

#nope 2022 #I am so normal about Jean Jacket and all her mysteries I swear-

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canmom · 2 years

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Animation Night 125: Peter Chung

[Animation Night archive]

Hiii everyone, it’s Thursday! And it’s a multiple of 5, which means it’s time for something ‘big’. Which is to say... full circle back to the creator whose Aeon Flux started this whole thing, Peter Chung~... one of my favourite directors.

^ me setting up an Animation Night...

But! We’re not here to watch Aeon Flux again this time! [Though if you wanna read about Aeon Flux, go check out Animation Night 52]. We’re here to watch the other works of Peter Chung! Such as Alexander Senki aka Reign: the Conqueror...

You see, Peter Chung is one of the few people to have the experience of directing both anime and western animation. The insights this gave him, related once upon a time on the anipages forums, were one of the seeds of what would become the ‘sakuga fandom’.

But let’s start at the beginning. Here’s a picture of Chung via imdb...

He was born in Seoul in 1961, the son of a guy in the foreign service, which meant his childhood was spent travelling all over the world (Wikipedia lists Seoul, London, Nairobi, Washington, D.C., New York and Tunis). Eventually they settled down to migrate to the USA, in Virginia. I’m not exactly sure when Chung got the animation bug, but it was early enough to send him to CalArts, where he attended their experimental animation program.

At age 18, he graduated CalArts joined the animation industry, working for the Spanish painter Salvador Bru. You can see some of Bru’s abstract paintings here; I haven’t been able to track down any of his work in animation. In any case, within a year Chung landed at Hanna-Barbera, working on character design, and also working with Ralph Bakshi [Animation Night 63] on layouts for his barbarian movie Fire and Ice (1983).

At this point he apparently got scouted by Didney for feature development, although which features he may have developed is not entirely clear. He also has layout and art direction credits for a couple of franchise works from this mid-80s period, such as The Transformers (1984, animation outsourced to Toei) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987, animated at an American studio then called Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, now Fred Wolf Films), and some less well remembered ones such as C.O.P.S., a bizarre animated spinoff of a reality show following cops on the job, and Ring Raiders, a toyline-driven show promoting toy aeroplanes.

Chung’s major break came, so far as I can tell, when he designed the characters for the inaugral Nickoledeon show Rugrats (see Animation Night 31 when we watched the Hanukkah episode), in which a group of children play in elaborate fantasy worlds. The show was a huge hit, although it was still a few years until Chung got the opportunity to create something purely according to his vision in Aeon Flux. In the intervening period he got to work on the post-apocalyptic superhero show Phantom 2040 (1994), once again on character design.

Then came Liquid Television, and Aeon Flux. Aeon Flux stood out amidst Liquid Television because its animation could easily have belonged a mainstream show... if it wasn’t horny philosophical science fiction, heavy on ambiguity. But by the same token, it’s specificity won a lot of die-hard fans (like me).

Since there are a number of interviews out there, let’s get some of Chung’s own words on what went into it...

O: You tend to broadly exaggerate your characters' physical characteristics, especially their height and their musculature—is there any particular symbolic or aesthetic reason?

PC: That's a hard thing for an artist to try to analyze. I could kind of try to pick it apart, but the simple truth is, that's the way I draw. I mean, I can tell you about my influences—my favorite artist is Egon Schiele, the German Expressionist. If you look at his drawings, they're very economical, very expressive. The first time I saw them, I thought they were perfect for animation. So I did make a conscious effort to try and adapt that approach to drawing. The other thing is… I was going for a style, when I was doing Aeon Flux, that was much more dependent on expressive drawing as opposed to lots of surface detail. In Japanese productions, they like to put a lot of highlights and shadows on things, to make things look very rendered. Each drawing has to stand out individually as an illustration. Having been trained in American animation, I wanted to have characters that were very realistic, but not so loaded with detail that they were going to be hard to move.

O: Your characters, both in Aeon Flux and in Reign, tend to dress in a way that's half formalized costume, half fetish gear. They often don't wear much, and what they wear is elaborate and stylized. What are your fashion influences?

PC: Well, I struggled a lot, when I was doing Aeon Flux, with how far to push the costumes, and how realistic to make them. I think a lot of illustrators realize—and you see this a lot in American comics as well—that if you draw costumes realistically, it's very difficult. You end up spending all your time trying to create believable drapery. So the tendency is to draw skin-tight costumes that mold around the body. This allows you to use the body more. You see this with classical sculpture, and dancers. You try to use the expressive qualities of the human body more—that's why sculptors prefer to work with nudes, as opposed to trying to make the clothing look accurate. Otherwise you end up concentrating on the clothing and not the person. The same is true with animation—I think of my animated characters as dancers. I want to be able to use body language as much as possible.

Chung’s comments here are interesting, in that his talk of forgoing highlights reminds me of the kagenashi approach taken by Mamoru Hosoda - in both cases, putting less complexity in the static drawings to allow for more motion, but still strongly influenced by the more solid drawing style of anime instead of the more 2D graphical approach of most American TV animation. Chung’s style of lanky anatomy with exaggerated bumps and details is uinstantly recognisable; only Robert Valley, directly inspired by him, is all that similar within animation.

What about Egon Schiele? Let me show you some of his paintings...

...you can probably see how he influenced Chung! (Expressionism if you’re wondering was a pre-first world war Modernist art movement which responded to naturalism and positivism by emphasising the personal, subjective emotional experience of the world. Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Alongside Schiele the German expressionist, Chung cites a whole lot of influences; lemme pick out some of the ones we’ve talked about on here...

I don't consciously model my style or techniques on any particular body of work. I try as much as possible to draw from personal experience and observation. I'm inspired by the work of other artists, mostly because they show me how good it's possible to be at practicing one's craft. They would include, in no special order:

David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Alexandro Jodorowsky [Toku Tuesday 27], Michelangelo Antonioni, Alain Resnais, Jean Cocteau, Allain Robbe-Grillet, Seijun Suzuki,

Osamu Dezaki [Animation Night 95], Yoshiaki Kawajiri [Animation Night 25, Animation Night 67], Yoshinori Kanada [Animation Night 62], Moebius [Animation Night 71], Kazuo Umezu [author of The Drifting Classroom, whose adaptation we watched on Toku Tuesday 19],

Egon Schiele, Horst Janssen, Frank Lloyd Wright, among others.

On comics, he’s pretty down on the state of the American industry, describing it as largely divided between heavy-handed narration where the illustrations feel gratuitous, and artistic flexes with weak story. He describes his aspiration to communicate the feelings of the characters visually, without being heavy-handed. So while I’m citing influences, lemme pull up Peter Chung’s favourite comics...

Here is a list of my personal favorite comics stories in no particular order. My choices are based as much on mastery of narrative form, as on originality of conception. Each of them appear to have been impelled by an inner vision; they are not comics inspired by other comics, but rather by dreams, obsessions, yearnings.

1. Baptism, Makoto-chan, Fourteen by Kazuo Umezu 2. Savannah by Sanpei Shirato 3. Mighty Atom, No-man, Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka 4. The New Gods by Jack Kirby 5. The Airtight Garage, Arzach by Moebius 6. The Incal Saga by Moebius and Jodorowsky 7. The Tower, The Hollow Earth Series by Schuiten and Peeters 8. The Jealous God, Envie de Chien by Cadelo 9. Be Free! by Tatsuya Egawa 10. Hard-Boiled by Geof Darrow and Frank Miller

I love Aeon Flux, but I’ve talked at length about it in the past, so let’s not spend too long on it here, since tonight the focus is on what came next!

In 1998-9, four years after Aeon Flux, Chung got his chance to work in anime - and not only work in anime but on a series co-directed by Rintaro (Animation Night 53, AN 62, AN 67).

So. Alexander Senki began life as a series of light novels by Hiroshi Aramata, a prolific and widely talented natural history researcher and novellist known otherwise for the occultist historical fantasy novel Teito Monogatari. Alexander Senki tell the story of Alexander the Great, but projected into a futuristic scifi setting.

For the animated version, Madhouse went for an international approach, and invited Chung to come in and design the characters and settings for a 13-episode TV anime, later compiled into a 90-minute film. Much of the animation was outsourced to the Korean studio DR Movie - one you’ll see frequently in the credits of recent anime, but I believe this was more novel at the time.

Chung commented on the experience in the above interview...

Peter Chung: There are many ways I could answer [what it’s like to put a particular stamp on a work he’s not directing], I suppose. In this particular case, it was different from a lot of other shows I've worked on as a designer. I've done a lot of work in the U.S. as a character designer, but in Japan, it's much more of an auteur role, where they really want your individual style on a project. In the U.S., it's much more collaborative. What was good about Reign was that they really liked the idea of things having an eccentric, personal style. And for me, that was great. A lot of that has to do, usually, in animation, with the ability of the animators to adapt to the drawing style of the designer, and they did a very good job, they tried very hard, to follow my original drawings. Whereas often, in American productions, they will try to simplify or adapt a designer's drawings to what the animators can draw.

O: Do you prefer the auteur method over working collaboratively?

PC: Well, as a designer, I like having the freedom and the license to design the way I want. So for me, working with the Japanese is better, at least from a designer's point of view. Now, working from the point of view of an animator, I think the animators had a lot of difficulty adapting to my style.

Animation-wise, Alexander Senki draws on the familiar techniques of Madhouse’s OVAs: limited animation and multiplane effects with moments of more complex animation. But Chung’s character and environment designs give it a particular flavour that makes it feel very different to most Madhouse works, really underlining the significance of a character designer to a project. The result, which takes a wander through the story of Alexander with a lot of philosophical musing was... polarising, but if you like Chung’s style, very appealing.

Since I cannot find the movie and it’s said to cut too much anyway, tonight my plan is to show 3-4 episodes of Alexander Senki - enough to give a taste. Because then the question is, what did Chung do next? He got a little more anime work, animating the credits to Party 7 - a live action comedy film which also Takeshi Koike on the map for its title sequence. Years later, Koike would make a spectacular tribute to Aeon Flux as an ad for the cancelled computer game...

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And then we get the third entry in the ‘Aeon Fluxlike’ canon: Chung directed a segment of the Animatrix (Animation Night 6, long overdue for a rewrite though!). This was his first time working with significant CG - something he found a much more fluid process than traditional animation - and he was brimming with ideas, many of which ended up cut. Nevertheless, his entry is effective - pretty much just ‘what if Aeon Flux but the Matrix’, featuring a machine in a virtual environment designed to persuade it to defect. Chung says...

I mean, how many variations can you do on the story of someone suspecting that he's living in a simulation, then waking up? I decided to take a radically different approach and view the world from the point of view of the machines. After all, a robot would be more susceptible to delusion than a human. Also, I wanted to show that the human mind is just as capable of creating a rich and seductive dream world as a computer is.

And after these three splendid creations, what did Chung do next? I think most people if asked would draw a blank, since he kind of fell off the radar. Aeon Flux was adapted into a feature-length movie, originally described as more of an art film by director Karyn Kusama, but it was taken out of her hands and heavily re-edited by the studio into a very generic sci-fi action movie. Chung had little involvement, and was heartbroken at the result:

With apologies to both Phil and Matt-- who have publicly been effusive in their praise for the show-- the movie is a travesty. I was unhappy when I read the script four years ago; seeing it projected larger than life in a crowded theatre made me feel helpless, humiliated and sad. (...) I know that the studio made a lot of cuts against the wishes of the writers and director. Most of the cuts concerned further development of the secondary characters. Since my main problems are with the portrayal of Aeon and Trevor, I doubt that I'd have liked the longer version much better. I didn't when I read the script, and there are definitely some things I'm glad WERE cut-- like Catherine's pregnancy. Maybe the makers didn't understand the source material and thought they were being true to it; or they understood it, but didn't think it would appeal to a wide enough audience and altered it to suit their presumed target. They claim to love the original version; yet they do not extend that faith to their audience. No, they will soften it for the public, which isn't hip enough to appreciate the raw, pure, unadulterated source like they do. (...) Presuming to know what an audience wants to see and tailoring the product to fit is a method that sucks all the drive I'd have to ever create anything. It's self-defeating disingenuous. I'm not naive about the realities of making unconventional films in the arena of "mass entertainment". It's possible to make good unconventional films; it's also very hard. In any case, if you're going to risk failure, I say do it boldly, with conviction. The problem with the movie is its failure of nerve.

But Chung never seems to have gotten the chance to direct a wholly original project again. The remainder of his work is adaptations or franchise work, with various big productions reaching out to him to put a stylish auteur’s spin on their IP.

The first of these is a short film bridging the gaps between the two Riddick movies.

Riddick? Riddick is a series of sci-fi action movies featuring Vin Diesel as a space criminal. I admit, I haven’t seen them! They weren’t especially successful at the time, but became cult films, kind of present in nerd culture back in the 2000s... and kind of forgotten since. The first movie, Pitch Black, sees Riddick and co on a pilgrim ship which crash lands on an alien planet, where they have to survive. The second, The Chronicles of Riddick, opens with Riddick in hiding from bounty hunters. However did he get there? Telling us is Chung’s job!

The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury is a 35 minute short animated film, created at Universal Animation Studios, which specialise in direct-to-video films. This was the first time that Chung worked with Robert Valley, who would later become well known for his two films in Love Death and Robots (Animation Night 99); fortunately this being a franchise entry does not overwrite that distinctive Chung/Valley style, as seen in this distinctive fight scene animated along with Jorden Oliwa and Lee Hong. It’s full of cool distorted perspectives in the drawings and distinctive layouts.

Chung next appeared three years later, on another franchise spinoff, titled Revisioned: Tomb Raider, a compilation series bringing on a variety of comics artists and writers to put their own spin on the game. This was supposed to be the first in a whole series of Revisioned projects based on games, but in the end it seems only one was ever made. Chung provided designs and scripts for the first three episodes. They’re all available on Youtube, starting here...

youtube

Videogame spinoff animations have a curious quality: they tend to have exceptionally lavish animation with all the videogame $$$ coming in, but often feel quite limited by being a promotion - more on that when I talk about Trigger’s Cyberpunk anime sometime soon. I’ll be interested to see how Chung handles this one.

Another three year gap later in 2010 and Chung directs his only feature-length film, Firebreather, adapting an Image comic about teenagers battling kaiju in CG. It sounds honestly... pretty plain by Chung’s standards, without much to distinguish it in either animation or the energy of the story. It seems to have disappeared without really making a splash.

In 2012 comes another brief videogame promotion, this time for Diablo.

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In both this and Tomb Raider, Chung seems to have moved away from his earlier unshaded style; this one especially skews much more to ‘Western animation taking after anime’. There is, sadly, very little of that Peter Chung flair to be seen, and honestly I wouldn’t have guessed he was involved: it’s just a string of fight scenes.

The next year, Chung started working as a teacher at USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he remained ever since. It’s not quite the end of his creative output in animation, since he did produce the titles for Victor and Valentino (2019), most likely because the author of the original comic book sees him as a huge influence and asked directly. And that’s it, basically! A complete slice through the creations of the Aeon Flux guy...

What’s the plan tonight? Essentially the cross-section of Peter Chung works presented above: we’ll watch a fair chunk of Alexander Senki, and then have a look at everything since. If people are in the mood we might even rewatch a bit of Aeon Flux!

So! Let’s go! Animation Night 125 will be starting shortly, at https://twitch.tv/canmom - hope to see ya there ^^

#animation night #peter chung #aeon flux #alexander senki #reign the conqueror

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karinzany · 9 months

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tag game: 3 books, 3 movies, and 3 songs

that changed your life or you just love.

thanks for the tag @lumochiart! I appreciate how you never forget about me when it comes to these tag games (and I will do the previous ones too!!)

About the books 📚:

Isabel Allende is my favorite author. I read "The city of beasts" when I was 13 and fell in love with her writing. It is part of a trilogy (Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar) which I absolutely reccomend if you enjoy magical realism, the literary genre that she has mastered to perfection. Her first novel, "The House of the Spirits", it's a great example of that. It's very reminiscent of "100 years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. They both follow the story of a Latin-American family across generations, and they are so whimsical but at the same time incredibly raw when depicting reality. Although it is not considered a trilogy, "Daughter of Fortune" and "Portrait in Sepia" both include characters from "The House of the Spirits", and to this day they are my favorite books from her.

José Saramago won a Nobel Prize for a reason. "Death at Intervals" (pictured aboved), "Blindness" (which has a great film adaptation) and the sequel "Essay on Lucidity" are all amazing philosophical exercises that start with a very simple premise, respectively "what if people stopped dying?", "what if everyone turned blind?" and "what if everyone casted blank votes?". And the results are absolutely astounding. He never names his characters, nor he specifies in which country the action takes place (although we can tell it's Portugal), so that we can focus solely on the actions of the characters when faced with these dillemas. I couldn't reccomend them enough. I've read his books in Portuguese, but I'm confident the English translation does them justice.

Patrick Süskind isn't an author I know well, but "Perfume" is certainly one of the most memorable books I've ever read. The descriptions of the visuals and smells of 18th century Paris are so vivid that you feel like you're really there. You get inside the mind of the murderer, and you can understand, in a twisted way, how he can turn death into something so beautiful. And the ending of the book, my God! I couldn't forget it even if I tried. It's the culmination of his character, and it shows you what he considers to be the true meaning of love. It also has a film adaptation.

About the movies 📽️:

"The Little Mermaid" and "Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper" are self-explanatory, absolute animated classics from my childhood.

"The Secret Garden" (In Portuguese, "O Jardim Secreto", picture I took of my VHS) is based on the novel with the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I watched this movie compulsively when I was little. The songs were amazing, and it was actually scary in some parts. The ending is slightly different than the novel, and surprisingly I enjoyed the movie a lot more! Which literally never happens. So yeah, if you somehow find this specific version of the movie on the internet I definitely reccomend a watch. It holds up very well even as an adult (also much better than the live-action).

About the songs 🎶:

I don't know if you could tell, but Florence + the Machine is my favorite singer, since I was 11. She had one album that I listened on repeat. They were the only songs on my old MP3 player. To this day, I have her entire discography saved on my phone, so I can listen to it even without internet.

"Between Two Lungs" is from the first album, "Lungs", and it makes me want to run into the woods and scream my lungs out. "Shake It Out" is from the second album, "Ceremonials" (my favorite), and it is very dear to my heart, since I've sang it in two school competitions already (with 9 years in between the two).

"King" is from the fifth album, "Dance Fever", and it did things to me. "I am no mother, I am no bride, I am King." My aroace heart loved the song. Even though I know the original interpretation was an argument between two lovers, I also read it as an act of defiance to your parents, your loved ones and to the society in general that wants to shove into the role of what a woman has to be. But I don't want to be a mother or a bride. I want to take control of my own life. I want to be King. On YouTube, there's also a poem version that is equally beautiful.

I'm tagging @portgas-d-ani @lorillee @alwayshasacold @caseyd1a @tinycurlyfry @vgprincess @tevali @zhabk4 and anyone who wants to participate!

I've spent more time answering this than I thought I would, but you don't actually have to explain your choices, I did it of my own volition! You can just post the pictures >.<

#thank you again for the tag lumochiart!#this one so much fun to do #tag game

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daevilhorns-1 · 1 year

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Levi would you ever do cover songs? If so, which songs would you want to cover the most?

he loves covering songs , and i have a very long list of songs he has in some capacity or another ! but i'll save you the ten page essay by only naming the most notable ones. i guess it's important to note that his favorite types of songs to cover are the ones that people would least expect from him —— i.e songs that are kind of jokey , songs that are very different from his genre , etc. he thinks that not only is it hilarious and fun to do , but a challenge for himself. to see if he's even able to turn something so far out of his league into something heavy while still being enjoyable. i've taken the liberty to link each song where applicable with covers that have already been done ; but while they aren't exactly how he would make them sound , they're close enough for you to get the idea. ( it's hard out here for a girl that can never find any existing artist that's perfectly levi. )

hell is for children —— pat benatar.

let me put my love into you —— ac/dc.

left outside alone —— anastacia.

true faith —— new order.

unholy —— sam smith.

but then there's songs that of course he would cover , the world and himself would be disappointed if he didn't. these are songs that are still comfortably within his wheelhouse of metal and are some of his favorites in general —— meaning he wouldn't stray too far from the source material because they were perfect the first time around.

christian woman —— type o negative.

solitude —— candlemass.

animal ( fuck like a beast ) —— w.a.s.p.

planet caravan —— black sabbath.

chokehold —— sleep token.

and finally , we have songs that levi will secretly record and publicly put out without his name or full face attached. i've toyed around with the idea of him having a secret youtube channel where he does acoustic , keyboard , or piano covers with a slight effect thrown on his vocals of more mainstream songs —— because he's embarrassed of being openly perceived as someone who not only occasionally enjoys more popular music , but as vulnerable by the nature of them. and he will deny that it's him. even when his hand tattoos are a dead giveaway.

adaptation / love in the sky —— the weeknd.

nightcall —— kavinsky.

softcore —— the neighbourhood.

somebody else —— the 1975.

call out my name —— the weeknd.

#anonymous #. i know this was supposed to be ic but. i had a lot to say.#. and SOMEONE had to call him out for the last ones.#. thank you so much for this !!! <3 #⁽ 𝖎. ⁾ ✟ . . . 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝚅𝙸𝙻 𝚂𝙾𝙻𝙳 𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝚂𝙾𝚄𝙻 𝚃𝙾 𝙼𝙴. :͓̽ study.

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msclaritea · 8 months

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Wes Anderson on his new Roald Dahl film: ‘No one who is not the author should be modifying somebody else’s book’ – The Irish Times

Wes Anderson, the director of The Royal Tenenbaums and Asteroid City, has a celebrated eye for detail – right down to the choice of instruments for each score, according to the composer Alexandre Desplat, his regular collaborator.

The film-maker selected glockenspiel, triangles and other puppet-sized noisemakers for the percussion for Fantastic Mr Fox, and traditional taiko drums for the Japanese-set animation Isle of Dogs. When he made The Grand Budapest Hotel, he hung pictures of the characters, created by his partner, the costume designer Juman Malouf, around the hotel where the cast and crew were staying.

But even the best-laid plans can be meaningless when it comes to moviemaking, according to Anderson, who tells a story about The Darjeeling Limited, his Indian odyssey from 2007.

“You try to take control of it, but when you make a movie you’re saying, ‘I’m going to invite chaos into my life.’ When we made The Darjeeling Limited in India, we prepared everything very, very carefully. But it took us to strange places. We visited this little village, and we wanted to do a shot there and we needed a hut. And the elders of the village said, ‘We can build you the hut.’

“So we came back two weeks later and the hut was perfect, and we said, ‘Thank you very much. We’ll see you on Tuesday.’ And when we came back on Tuesday the hut had been decorated with all these flowers and swirls, and they painted it pink and blue. But the scene we wanted to shoot was a funeral.”

Anderson has certainly paid attention to detail today. We are at a hotel on the Venice Lido, during the city’s film festival, to hear about his new movie. When the director arrives he is wearing a tailored shirt the colour of the Adriatic Sea outside. Like the candy-coloured pinstriped suit he wore on the red carpet the day before, it’s a very Andersonian hue.

Dev Patel (left) as Dr Chatterjee, Ben Kingsley as Imdad Khan and Richard Ayoade as Dr Marshall in Roald Dahl's The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Photograph: Netflix

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which stars Ben Kingsley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes and Dev Patel, is the first instalment of an anthology of Roald Dahl adaptations; three short films based on the short stories Ratcatcher, The Swan and Poison are in various stages of production.

“Henry Sugar is one of the friendlier ones,” Anderson says. “The others are the more familiar darkness of Dahl. Ratcatcher is very strange and a bit disturbing. I think The Swan is one of his best stories, and it’s extremely dark and quite brutal. Poison has an emotional brutality to it that’s pretty striking. It’s very early. We’re adapting stories that are from another time, with dated language. We’ve kept it how it is.”

This is not new terrain for Anderson – that big-screen interpretation of Fantastic Mr Fox dates back to 2009. He had been planning to adapt The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar since a sojourn at Gipsy House, Dahl’s family home, in Buckinghamshire, some 20 years ago. The Dahl family, represented by Felicity Dahl and Dahl’s grandson Luke Kelly, set the rights to the story aside until Anderson could figure out a way to untangle the nested stories of his childhood favourite.

“I was planning this for a long time – years and years and years,” Anderson says. “I probably wouldn’t have done it except that I realised, reading the story to my daughter, that what I liked about the story is how Dahl tells it. I like his voice, his description, his metaphors and the way his words bring it to life. And I thought, well, maybe I can do that with a movie. That’s how I figured out that it had to be a short and that we had to use Dahl’s words.”

Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Photograph: Netflix

That Fiennes, an Anderson regular, plays Dahl in a replica of the author’s study adds another layer to the mise en abyme of this 39-minute film. Its plot, or plots, run thus: the rich, idle man of the title (Cumberbatch) happens upon a journal detailing a guru (Kingsley) who can see without using his eyes. Sugar sets out to emulate that skill so that he might cheat at cards. Things do not go according to plan.

Following on from the stylised Asteroid City, the film swaps out scenery, casts actors (including Rupert Friend and Richard Ayoade) in multiple roles, plays with dollies and camera movement, and engages in Brechtian high jinks as Fiennes rattles through a slavishly faithful framing script.

“We loved making it,” Anderson says. “We loved working with Benedict Cumberbatch and the wonderful Ben Kingsley and Dev Patel and our old friend Ralph Fiennes. For this movie we needed actors who could take pages of text and bring them to life. Some actors are great at moments, but you would not ask them to go perform this play on stage. It’s not their thing. Their thing may be spontaneity, but it’s a different kind of work. English actors tend to be able to do everything. At the last play I watched in the West End, I sat down at the end to make a list of names on the playbill.”

Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar and Ben Kingsley as the croupier in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Photograph: Netflix

Anderson’s fidelity to Dahl’s text runs counter to the recent move by Dahl’s publishers to edit language gauged as offensive out of his work, a revisionism that Anderson has repeatedly denounced.

“I really don’t like it,” he says. “If I bought a painting – let’s say a Titian – and Titian called me up and said, ‘You know, I always thought there should be a little girl in the background of the painting; if I could just come over and fix that.’ I would say, ‘I’d rather you didn’t; this is my Titian.’ I feel that if somebody writes a book or somebody makes a film and it goes out into the world, then it’s ours. It’s too late to change it. And if I don’t believe that the artist or the author themselves can change his or her work, then the idea of somebody else changing it? I don’t even want to start that conversation. But, certainly, no one who is not the author should be modifying somebody else’s book.”

[ Yes, Roald Dahl sometimes got it wrong. But it isn’t up to us to make it right ]

That said, he has reservations about some of his own completed works, notably The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, a pretty failure that remains a source of disquiet for its creator.

“I’m a little bit obsessed with what I should have done differently,” Anderson says. “This goes to, like, the scheduling of the movie, the budgeting. It was a very, very big movie. It was very complex. It was the kind of movie where if you’ve made it once then you really know how to do it. We went 20 days over schedule. We went $10 million over budget. We struggled. I have got so many ideas about how we could have improved it in the cutting room. Maybe let’s just leave it at that.”

The layered storytelling of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar fits neatly with the director’s similarly complex recent features, notably The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch and Asteroid City. That’s hardly accidental.

“I read it when I was probably eight years old, and it was doing a thing I had never seen before. There’s a story within a story. You meet a character and he says, ‘Let me tell you something,’ and then he tells a story inside of the story. I think my recent films all probably come from Henry Sugar in the first place.”

Anderson grew up in Houston, in Texas, the son of a writer and an archaeologist. He was a huge fan of Dahl and of the New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. (He organised a private screening of his movie Rushmore for the critic on the eve of her retirement. Her response? “Did the people who gave you the money read the script?”) After graduating from the University of Texas he relocated to California, where he and his friend Owen Wilson wrote Bottle Rocket, which Anderson now describes as “the film that’s least like me”.

“I wanted to be like Spike Lee,” he says. “He’s one of the reasons why I became a film-maker. I was so inspired by She’s Gotta Have It. And I read his book Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It back in 1987. I tried my best to just follow his roadmap, which didn’t work at all. I didn’t even get into NYU. So I had to find another way.”

Wes Anderson not Spike Lee

His other way has brought together a regular troupe of actors and collaborators. Owen Wilson, his former roommate, has featured in seven films; Willem Dafoe, Anjelica Huston, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton and Adrien Brody have appeared in five apiece. Desplat has composed every Anderson film since Fantastic Mr Fox. Robert Yeoman has served as director of photography for all of Anderson’s live-action films. Adam Stockhausen, his production designer, has been on board since Moonrise Kingdom, his 2012 film. These recurring credits coalesce into a recognisable style even though Anderson says he always believes he’s making something completely different from before.

“The idea of not doing things as they are normally done – you’ve got to find out how it’s normally done first,” Anderson says. “And that has happened over the course of making the movies. The best people to ask are the people I work with. People like Sanjay Sami, my key grip. He has expertise and irony. He has watched us deconstruct the way people make movies and find our own ways. And that’s fun.

“Each of the collaborations is so different. With casting it’s almost like a recipe: how are these people going to mix together? With Bob Yeoman the preparation is quite simple. We used to watch a lot of movies together before each movie, but now we’ve communicated about all these things so much, we have a well of shared references. He knows where I’m going. With Adam Stockhausen, we work mostly by email. We go scouting. The process tends not to be very preconceived. It’s a discovery process and research.”

In 2005 Anderson relocated from New York to Paris, where he has remained ever since. He loves being an American abroad, even if his French is not all that it could be.

“Until I was 23 years old my life was only in Texas. I had travelled a little bit in America. But the parameters of my life were compact. The people I knew lived in a small visible space. But I was always interested in movies. And movies were from everywhere. They were my way to get out and see the world. And the more I saw, the more I wanted to get out and see. I like the idea that having breakfast can be an adventure. And when you’re in a foreign country sometimes that’s exactly what it is. In Paris, just walking in a different neighbourhood is like going to the movies. I like the feeling of being a little bit outside of the place where I live.”

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is on Netflix from Wednesday, September 27th

It's too bad that Wes Anderson feels the way he does about Life Aquatic. That's the only one I like. So weird! I was also studying Brazilian music at the time. Seu Jorge became a favorite.

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