#animal programmes make me so emotional :(

[misscammiedawn]

50 Days of HypnoKink - Day 15: Mantras/Call & Response

Alignment: 95% Top. I am sure I enjoy doing this when I am soft, but I just don't get a charge from it like I do when I'm in control.

This one seems pretty cut and dry on the surface, but my interest in it has drive me to explore the sandbox as much as I am able. Obviously there is such a distinct thrill in hearing a delightfully soft partner slur out "must obey..." in their litany of blissed out, monotone or bespelled tones of voices. As I had mentioned yesterday, I have an affinity for voices; one thing I forgot to mention in that post was the impact of transformation.

A giant part of my interest in this kink is caught up in the changes in states, emotions and energies. Hypnosis is a dynamic and a hypnotic relationship is itself dynamic with so many moving parts. I live for all of the little intricacies of exploration and change.

And so, to be able to take a fully alert and active partner and with a few words make them go hollow and repeat a phrase I put in their head?

That, my loves, is hot as fuck; especially if there is a bounce back. When they realize what had happened and become animated in shock, embarrassment or even affection. My goal is always to add to the interaction. Never to shoot it down.

My preferred one on both sides of the watch when I was young was "You're MINE." With the programmed reply "I'm yours..."

I recall the way the words washed over and crescendoed into a swooning sigh as eyes close, hand clutches heart and a loving release of all tension as that affectionate reply comes out. I loved it so much. Especially if I was the one saying it right before a neck bite. (Vampire kink is coming this week, I swear it.)

Much akin to the other entries, I could just leave it at explaining why I find it hot and leaving it at that, but I did say I like to explore the sandbox... so let me share some distinct flavors. Maybe you all have your own flavors. Feel free to suggest any if I miss them, because I want to know more.

- Obedience mantras "I must obey" and its ilk. A simple and firm statement that states obedience. I tend to do these with "You" statements parroted back with an "I" such as "You can't resist" "I can't resist".

- Autofractionation mantras which are those lovely moments of training where the call and response both come from inside the house. All I need to do is start the chain reaction, "I am going deeper" on repeat is a very basic one for this. They'll keep repeating and reinforcing until you stop them. But I have a programmer's brain, so I like things which create recursive loops, "I can go deeper - so I must go deeper" on repeat for instance. As long as my partner *can* go deeper they *must* go deeper. Oh how I love letting a partner just sizzle on that eternal loop as I sneak in and whisper in their ears "that's right... very good... just like that... keep going... deeper and deeper... obeying so perfectly... knowing I am so proud of you." For example.

- Check-in triggers. This one is one I picked up from Goddess as she has made it so that "Green" is always an acceptable answer when working in any spaces. I tend to only use this one within Oikos as it is part of our consent dynamic. I worry that mirroring "Green?" "Green." Is less asking and more telling someone what they feel. Which is fine within Oikos, but I do not consider myself controlling enough or negotiated enough with my partners to add that to the mix. Still. "Green?" "Green." Is a really good way of gently tugging a partner's mind and seeing where they are.

- Physical call and response triggers. People often forget this, but we are conditioned to perform a number of these in every day life. Hand waves for instance. I have not experimented enough with this, but I would love to blow a kiss to a partner and have their compelled reply to be to catch the kiss and place it to their cheek and feel a wave of infatuation overwhelm them. My love of Poison Ivy inevitably corrupts every part of this kink for me. I do have a hand signal which causes a partner to kneel and that is only *slightly* different from my Puppetiing Gestures special move. I highly recommend folks think about this one.

- Pre-programmed statements. There are two I'd like to call out here. "What are you?" With the reply a partner is conditioned to give, and pulling on a certain Dolly's drawstring so she will tell me that she is a good dolly and that good dollies obey. I do so enjoy knowing I get to hear a statement I put in their mind whenever I want. It is such a power rush.

(Edit: Since writing this I have added written mantras in to my rotation)

Lastly, I just want to add this one in for free.

Once I pinned a partner down, stared in their eyes and did a call and response trigger where the reply is the same as the statement. Then just kept repeating it, over and over, synchronizing my words to match theirs, speaking in unison. One dominant voice and one submissive voice, matching in harmony. Every time we said it we inspired the other to just keep going.

THAT was a magical moment. I highly recommend you try and emulate it.

---

Day 14: Voice Kink

FULL SCHEDULE MASTER POST

Day 16: Betrayal

#dawn posting #50 days of fetishes #hypnosis #hypnokink #I am fairly proud of this one

[unpopularshipperoboro]

Kyoko and Chihiro as a duo? Yes!

[This can be seen as a romantic or platonic relationship.]

Honestly, these two are pretty different in character but they'd make a great duo. stoic, serious and mystery solving Kyoko paired up with the insecure, shy and computer smart Chihiro.

Kyoko: She tends to get paired with Makoto, Byakuya or Shuichi when it comes to detective work, but I have a new idea. Kyoko is the Ultimate Detective, she's highly intelligent especially in mysteries and puzzle solving. She's reserved and hides her emotions much opposite to Makoto, Chihiro and even Shuichi. Pairing her with Makoto is common, after all she was the mysterious support character in THH and did her part in the anime. Byakuya ends up tagging along with those two for being the antagonist and getting great character development, however you can see some where Makoto is not involved. Shuichi is an obvious pair, they both share the same talent and are a great duo alone when it comes to detective work. Kyoko is the moon to Makoto's sun and she's seen as Shuichi's teacher.

Chihiro: Chihiro, on the other hand doesn't get much shine when it comes to his own skills so he'll tend to be paired with people to help him get stronger like Mondo and Taka. However, this causes Chihiro's programming skills to go unnoticed, especially with how much help they could be with Kyoko's works but we'll talk about that later. Chihiro is the Ultimate Programmer, he's intelligent in technology and fast at coding. He's emotional and timid unlike anyone Kyoko is paired with. For this reason and his want to become stronger, he's constantly paired with Mondo to grow and Kiyotaka due to all of chapter 2. Sometimes, he's even paired with Chiaki for her love of gaming and Chihiro being able to make her one.

Now, how would they work? I commonly see them great as partners in crime- not in actual crime but more of solving crime. Kyoko, being an amazing detective can still use assistance and she can't always access certain information. Chihiro on the other hand, can access any computer information since he most likely knows how to hack into devices, confirmed with Alter Ego and a common headcanon among most. Kyoko can solve and gather her own information while Chihiro can gain extra information for her. Chihiro is also seen as timid among many, if he can gain enough confidence he could be a spy in a way for missions you see mostly in shows, undercover missions.

Outside of being partners in crime, they have much more to them. Chihiro can help Kyoko feel less insecure about her emotions and help her show them more; Kyoko can return the cover by helping boost Chihiro's confidence in his strengths. They do enjoy information and talk about things either related to or not related to their talents. They both enjoy listening and talking to others, I feel their conversations last hours and nothing can stop them. I think they'd enjoy quiet comforts as well, they're very quiet people themselves so the calm comfort of each other after a stressful day is something they might need.

They hadn't gotten much screen-time together, in fact they only did when they were with everyone else however I think there's some missed potential in the two. If there's any of your own headcanons or you wish to add something, please let me know!

[I might do more of these, would anyone be interested?]

#danganronpa #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #danganronpa 2 #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa goodbye despair #danganronpa 3 #chihiro fujisaki #kyoko kirigiri #chirigiri #kyoko x chihiro #romantic or platonic

[hajihiko]

I love the way you drew that izuru doodle! I always thought Izuru in the anime looked too... not like he was a science experiment, but your Izuru just looks so much more realistic and it's heartbreaking but Izuru's existence is heartbreaking so. Well done you've outdone the danganronpa creators again

Question: What are your thoughts on Izuru? Like just him as a character? Do you have any headcanons about him? You might've been asked this before if so apologies ;-;

Thank you! Ive only seen that one sprite of him but it looked so....person with a wig, not very menacing

Anyway

I don't rly know anything about him, BUT i thought a lot about the deets of the whole talent thing, even talked to my rly smart friend about it

So like. We know he's constantly bored because he's so insanely capable and smart that nothing is any kind of challenge and therefore illicits no reaction. Also it's very possible that his brain just got messed with way too hard and it ruined the emotions part, one way or another (like hyper-dysthemic depression, idk if that's the word they still use but let's say I'm familiar with it).

I figure that, since nothing is a challenge, he doesn't even need to focus his talents, meaning it's either constantly running like a million computer programmes, or he just falls into the appropriate talent without needing to think about it- instinct basically, or rather, forcefully carved brain-paths.

Now bear with me I'm not a native english speaker. So when you do something often, and it works for you somehow, it opens a pathway in your brain to make it easier to access this action or thought, like sheep walking the path path over and over until it's a little grooved road. This is something people with talents of action (fighter, runner, programmer etc) definitely made in themselves, but it got artificially pressed into Izuru. So, he has these deep brain grooves that he effortlessly falls into when appropriate, because it's what all his brains are used to doing. It's extra effortless because he doesn't really care what it is, how it works, as long as it just does. His reactions might therefore be, creepily accurate in every situation, or completely inappropriate. Someone hugs him and he gives a great hug back because that's just what his body does, even if there's no emotion in it, because he's an Ultimate Babysitter or something. Or, someone hugs him and he breaks their arms, because his Ultimate Assassin talent kicked in and he just didn't care / try / have time to get out of that brain groove. And like, why would he? It worked then, it works now.

This is also, I want to interpret, somewhat why hes so GOSH darn bored. He got so good at protecting himself from all the pain and confusion that he just cut it all off entirely; VERY common trauma response. Some of it is definitely also the surgeries and the absolutely cacophony in his brain and his hyper-understanding- that's what keeps it up- but what started it might've just been a plain and simple coping mechanism. Also feels like that's why Hajime can come back fully; a) he decided to and he's a very wilful guy and his power is being human and I love him so he just did it, b) he was able to get out of that deep deep groove, feel his entire spectrum of emotions again and activate those pathways, and is once again able to kind of access them. It'll take time and effort to get to where he was, but it's happening! There's... dare I say.... hope?

Sidenote this is all based on / inspired by my experiences with depression (as a symptom or the whole thing idk) of the active-but-emotionally-dead variant, not nearly as serious as brain surgery fuckups but nonetheless sth I can connect. Just now realized I might be more invested in this than I thought.

This one is moreso Haji-zuru, but I imagine that he'd be both very easily bored and would often just peace out in his head bc nothing is fun (should not be left alone for too long bc he'll get too deep into his blank stasis), while ALSO chasing any real emotion ferociously, just like, honing in on anything that catches his feels. Which can be nice! Feelings are somehow novel and familiar to him. But also not nice because sometimes, the feeling is a bad one. Just because it makes you feel something doesn't mean that it's good for you and others.

Also the reflexes and such. Might be a hard habit to break.

Sidenote I generally err on the nurture side of philosophy and do not understand the talent thing. Everyone is memories, memories and thoughts are basically ALL we are, how can Izuru have the active parts of the memories only and nothing else. How can he be The Ultimate Babysitter without actually taking any of that in?? He can do the actions but not access anything that shapes them and that's honestly an interesting concept. Boggles the mind. No wonder he's fucked up he's fucking me up.

#Talky talky #This turned out long! Oops! #Izuru #Sorry I got personal there for a bit but honestly it's no thing to me so shrug #Not an art

[decamarks]

it's funny, but I just realized I was just discussing yesterday with a friend what specifically always unsettled me about the animated Mario head from Super Mario 64- that whole kind of hard to describe tech demo feeling to it (which I believe it originally was??? don't quote me on this) and being motion captured with very basic/rudimentary methods, and when you really think about it, you can sort of feel it

i feel like CHOW! totally hit the nail on the head for that exact feeling for me- I know you cited PSX & Xbox as your goals (i 100% see it in the aesthetic choices especially!!) but I love just how even without the glitching, it captures perfectly that sort of feeling that I think either leaves people feeling endeared or creeped out- but very very genuinely, like, perfectly gets across that concept of a programmer making a cool bit of advanced animation/interactivity tech at a time where it was still new! i adore that so much

OH MY GOD YES!!!!! i probably don't even need to confirm it, but yeah CHOW! was pretty directly inspired by the mario head. (i also cannot thank you enough for adhering to the manual's stylization of CHOW!).

the mario 64 head is an incredible thing to me, both in terms of it being a silly tech demo, and it being endearingly terrifying. the animations alone are a bit awkward looking and technologically stilted—and like, there's no way to avoid the fact that it is explicitly an entity of endless body horror, because. it IS. it was designed to be stretched and warped and deformed by small hands just learning to use the n64 controller. yet it remains such a fun and fascinating thing... we have the technology to do terrifying things to mario's face, so we will. it's an inevitability that we can, and should, embrace—that is the message mario 64 sends. or it's not and they just wanted to have a goofy interactive title screen with silly expressive animations. who knows!

i think we need a new term for this kind of endearing creepiness. "ugly-cute" is a widely recognized notion, but 'ugly' ≠ 'uncanny'. i propose uhhhhhhh. "uncandearing". actually that sucks nevermind. BUT IT'S AN EMOTION I TREASURE REGARDLESS OF IF I HAVE THE WORDS FOR IT. it's something particularly present in older technology; the rudimentary tools and strict limitations on what can be created that leads to this uncanny, stilted strangeness. it gives the impression of something trying so hard to be appealing and friendly, but it's just breaking at the seams from how much effort it takes to do so. thus becoming 10000x creepier than it was initially. and 10000x more endearing, too...?

another famous example of this is the IBM computer singing daisy bell. it's just so cute to see time and time again that people will endlessly innovate in order to imbue technology with bits of humanity—by expressing artificial emotions, or silly virtual interactions... of course, it's not quite human enough to feel completely real, and not quite not-human enough to feel, y'know. not creepy. but it's TRYING its BEST.

at least for me, i don't think it's a harsh split between perceiving it as endearing or uncanny—it's a bit of both, and each amplifies the other. i intended for CHOW! to be the most viscerally repulsive thing ever brought to 3d space (and i'd say i succeeded to some extent), but as i was animating, it inexplicably grew on me? to the point where i actually felt a little upset, like, peeling its skin off after it 'glitches out'. though it was a bit uncanny before, at that point the veil is entirely removed, and now it's not really even alive enough to be uncanny in the same way.

i hate CHOW!. i would also die and kill for it. these are two emotions that exist at the same time, and i just have to deal with that.

#i imagine the developers of CHOW! had the same weird protectiveness over their awful entity. hence the terrifying anti-cheat consequences. #like they've put so much money and time into this awful thing. and it sucks. and people want to feed it poison. #but after being around it for so long they just CANNOT be convinced that it's not cute and appealing #but on some level they know. they know people hate this thing. because they kind of hate it too. #this dissonance becomes anger and this anger becomes at least 500 bricked consoles and demolished save data. #and that becomes an entire development team losing their jobs. this is the power of CHOW!'s wrath. #ANYWAY. #another favorite piece of old interactive technology is fin fin. he is so stilted and silly and sings the most haunting melodies for me.

[beetroot-merchant]

new ava oc in town folks!

info under cut ^w^ although warning i use Punctuation and it is Out Of Character for me JLDNFSKDNJNSDKS

also hella long. not smth u wanna misclick

So. Sticks can be programmed right

There's this guy. Programmer. Spends all their time creating paradoxical programs -or turning well known paradoxes into programs- to see what'll happen.

They tackle a couple famous ones. The omnipotent being paradox, the barber one, the Pinocchio one, etc. But they also make up their own- one of which is Prod.

Prod's paradox is, after an amount of time determined by RNG, to betray any trust the other side has with it in a relationship. "Trust" being anything they've grown to expect from bug, anything they can rely on bug to do. Removing it would make the whole thing collapse; annoyingly, several unrelated lines that allow exe to function reference the traitor code, and by the time you redefined everything so it would continue living normally, its memories and personality would be overwritten.

How is betrayal a paradox? When you betray someone, you create trust that you two are now opposed. There's a mutual agreement to be against each other now. More trust to betray, even if it is negative. And betraying it would come in the form of really, genuinely taking it back- just as earnest as your betrayal was- and then going back and forth in a kind of limbo.

It betrays itself too, but not often- since it hardly trusts itself to be able to carry something out without interrupting itself and doing the exact opposite, bugs Traitor Code(trademarked copyright pending) triggering while bug's alone is quite rare. However, if exe was to make any attempt to rid itself of the code, it's guaranteed to betray itself halfway through- instilled as a failsafe by the programmer in case it grew defiant fOr SoMe rEaSoN

Surely, you might think, that if exe warned people that it was made this way, a couple of them might understand?

This creates a trust in the other person that they will be betrayed. And so, betraying this trust would mean not doing anything at all, meaning they grow more and more anxious of the betrayal they've been warned against, all the while growing closer to Prod as time passes, which just gives them more anxiety because the closer they are to exe, the more bugs betrayal will hurt them. It never comes, and so, in fear, most quit while they're ahead and leave bug first.

Yeowch.

To observe this paradox in the wild, our asshole programmer guy puts Prod inside a little simulated mini-society, a small town of mindless, bland sticks with about as much realistic emotion as your average videogame NPC. They're used for small-scale social experiments and reset quite often as the programmer switches from experiment to experiment, and so their AI never has much time to develop.

Prod's life in the PC sucks. It's inevitably hurting everyone it tries to bond with, and when bug ends up trying to quarantine bugself for everyone else's sake, exes just forced back into public by the programmer. It's let out of the simulation every now and then for mental health breaks and to have some. ahem. pleasant conversation with exes creator, but they hardly last long.

What the programmer doesn't realise though, is a fatal flaw in its code. Exe is built to betray anyone they have any sort of relationship with- including exes creator, however bitter their relationship may be.

So, one fateful break, exe slips away and never comes back. It's what it was made to do.

Nowadays it lives on the outskirts of Some Town Somewhere, trying its best to appear dull and uninteresting so no one ever talks to it -since drawing the line between "person I've talked to" and "person I have a relationship with" is difficult, and experimenting to try to figure it out hurts more people than exe's comfortable with.

Bug's taken a liking to botany, since even animals are risky to interact with, and spends a majority of bugs time taking care of bugs plants and painting in bugs room.

Open to asks as always! ^^

#🐞 || beetle babbles #this took a fucking eternity to type out so u bet ur ass im tagging it #ava oc #avm oc #ummm uhhh #screw it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #animator vs animation #alan becker #🐞 || beetle draws #🐞 || fandom: ava

[seerofmike]

ask meme: 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 20

5. Share one of your strengths.

everyone has always told me that i write invidiual character voices very well. i try to make narration and dialogue distinct and i think i do a great job!

my vantage is completely different from my crypto who is completely different from my octane, and on the surface octane may look like he'd share the same narrative voice as leo from rise but my leo rise voice is different from octane's and ohg i just love writing how different characters would describe things or percieve situations.

i do want to give a special shout out to my vantage from my mad science fic. i don't care for her character that much but writing her was so fun and judging by the reception i got from it when posted people really enjoyed her character voice too.

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

scene-setting, environmental description, action. god this problem plagues me when reading, writing, AND drawing. i simply cannot picture where characters are or what they're doing or how they're having this conversation, sitting down or standing up. in my brain, everything takes place with characters standing around in a white void until something happens in the environment. visually it looks like that one scene in coraline. you know the one

here's how my fic writing process goes. dialogue, emotion and feelings and shit, basic plot action like going to the next necessary location, or maybe a super important event, or the set-up and punchline to a non-verbal joke. then i go back and add like 1k-2k words of just...setting. description. action. response. reaction. physical action. THEN i go over it again for like actual editing and proofreading

i can give you an example right now of what i mean

everything highlighted here was not what was originally written and was added later so the scene would be more than just "he said/he said" and maybe it's because i'm the one who wrote it but like...you can tell it was tacked on.

i'm trying to get better at this and started drawing a storyboard for my current rottmnt fic because that one relies on action more than introspection and dialogue, but if u ever ask me to describe a location...girl i would need 30 minutes to think about it

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

umm...this one is kind of hard actually i don't really remember specific pieces of prose i write outside of dialogue!! if i had to pick it would be maybe this specific bit from chapter five of my simulacrum Crypto AU, Four Oh Three:

this is way more than a snippet lmao but writing this entire chapter was super satisfying with everything i'd set up so far. crypto not knowing if he actually felt attraction to octane or if his feelings were just the lingering result of his programming, trying to figure out what he could feel, IF he could feel, octane touching him and inviting him to touch him in turn, all the conflicting emotions that came with that.

i really felt at the time that it all really came together in a very drawn-out but deserved scene of intimacy (nearly the whole chapter?) after the result of like uhhh 30,000+ words of tension that i don't think i've ever really written before or since. i usually like to get straight into the dick in hole action lmfao but i was very satisfied and proud of myself for this one

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

so this isn't even writing advice it's programming advice LOL but several years ago i heard of rubber duck debugging in which programmers tell a rubber duck their code line by line until they realize what's causing them a problem. and ever since, for lengthy fics or things outside my comfort zone, i've described overarching plot details and invidiual chapters to either stuffed animals or my cat and if it sounds stupid being said out-loud then i usually decide it'd be stupid and nonsensical in a fic too and i change it up LOL

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

controversial opinion maybe but i think telling people that every scene in a book should only serve the narrative/plot is STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!! books aren't movies, you don't have a runtime limit!!! i think you lose out on so much character and introspection and world-building by forcing every scene in your book to only be plot-relevant stuff. sometimes characters interacting with each other and doimg stuff in their world is just fun or interesting and that's all it has to be

20.) Describe your perfect writing conditions.

i have my headphones plugged in and am listening to my music. the chair is comfy and i can lean back but my laptop is on a solid surface. i am supplied endlessly with coffee and fizzy drinks. all is well

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #601

Top Ten CITV Shows

This is a list I’ve deliberately held off doing for years. Why? Because I worked for CITV, for, like, a decade; that can give you a slightly skewed relationship with its output. There are some really weird, obscure shows that I really enjoyed, because they kind of became part of the office discourse or we built jokes around them (for instance, the Parping Ponies from Planet Sketch). Then there’s the fact that I know some of the people who made some of these shows; maybe I’m friends with them! Maybe that makes me want to rank the show too high! Or maybe I’m trying to counter a perceived bias, and I end up ranking it too low! I don’t wanna offend anyone! Especially, ahem, people who I might want to work with.

But finally, to mark the sad, sorry, and somewhat inevitable death of CITV as a channel and a going concern – long after it ceased to be a major player in the world of kids’ TV – and partly inspired by this article (well, entirely prompted by it to tell the truth), I have finally decided to take the plunge. I don’t think the notion of a house being a “CBBC” or “CITV” encampment really held true for me and my friends; it is true that I know people whose parents didn’t like them watching CITV for fear that its shows (or maybe just its adverts) would addle and corrupt their fragile young minds, but now we have TikTok so such fears seem naïve and ridiculous. No; I was a nerd who looked up show listings in advance and knew when to switch from one channel to another in order to watch, I dunno, The Real Ghostbusters on one side and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on the other (or Garfield and Friends versus Around the World in Eighty Days, or Mike and Angelo against The Really Wild Show). The point is, I was a flipper, and I don’t think I considered myself really in either camp. I was Channel Agnostic but a devout consumer of Stuff.

And I think, inevitably, this list is skewed heavily in favour of nostalgia. As much as I loved a good deal of what the CITV channel was putting out in my time there, when I think of genuine classics the bulk of them are from my own childhood. This is definitely perception talking, at least to some degree; there are shows that I think fell slightly between the cracks of my time watching and my time working. MPAA is almost that, only just skirting the first years of my employ (tragically cancelled after the Carlton-Granada merger and a dodgy football deal left ITV deeply, cripplingly in the red, and they ended up shutting Granada Kids, their dedicated kids’ TV production arm; this was basically within a year of me starting work there so maybe I’m a bad luck charm). Jungle Run is probably an all-timer that, because it didn’t hit me as a child (note: don’t actually hit children) my appreciation for it is perhaps a touch more academic than emotional. But to be honest, the really great shows – excepting one or two – that were on CITV when I worked there were, I’m sorry to say, imports and acquisitions; and as per the rules of The Article What I Linked To, these are all going to be home-grown productions. Original British CITV content, so not the likes of (the excellent) Almost Naked Animals or the seminal Pokémon, once so resolutely CITV-ish that it’s deeply weird to see it on CBBC nowadays (don’t they know it’s based on a game?!).

Also, because this list is specifically celebrating CITV, it does mean I can’t include some programmes that were made and broadcast on ITV but – for whatever reason – weren’t really CITV shows. Usually this is because they pre-date the birth of the formal Children’s ITV strand in January 1983, but sometimes because of some quirk or the other they were a “regular” ITV show rather than a CITV one. So if there’s a big, old, classic show (eg Rainbow or maybe The Wind in the Willows), that’s why it’s not on here.

Or I just forgot.

So anyway, let’s load up the digibeta one last time and spool through a bunch of terrific shows one last time, before downloading the ITVx app. And remember: if you want me to do some work for you but then you notice I’ve put your show disarmingly low on this list, it’s only because I love you and I don’t want people to think I’m giving you an unfair advantage. Plus I couldn’t even find room for Fun House, so if you’re here then you’ve definitely done alright.

Count Duckula (1988-1993): so I can’t include Danger Mouse here because it pre-dates CITV, but if I’m honest then as a kid I preferred Duckula anyway. This is one of those seminal, era-defining shows that is hilarious for kids and adults alike; a version of the traditional British type of humour that Cosgrove Hall used to infuse all their shows with, and which is – I guess – being carried aloft nowadays by the likes of Aardman. But the central conceit of a vegetarian vampire, the trad Britcom trope of a vainglorious buffoon thwarted by his own behaviour, plus a tremendous supporting cast, and – it cannot be understated – David Actual Jason doing giving a fantastic central performance. Everything about it rocked. I used to collect the comic.

My Parents are Aliens (1999-2006): part of a long tradition of weird sitcoms for kids, this seems both like the end of an era and also the beginning of something new (its DNA found in everything from My Spy Family to So Awkward). Treating its audience with respect and assuming they were both intelligent and funny, we’ve got some really great child performances surrounding two barnstorming central characters: Tony Gardner’s Brian and Carla Mendonça’s Sophie (no offence to OG Sophie Barbara Durkin). Stupid, vain, arrogant, childlike, and really weird, their various paranormal travails were the backbone of the series, leading to tremendously off-beat stuff like them getting crucified, kidnapping people, or, er, taking naked pictures (don’t ask). Its sad cancellation when it still had gas in its tank was a tragic end to the glory days of Old CITV.

Knightmare (1987-1994): fun fact: all the time I worked there, there was a Knightmare winners’ trophy in the CITV office, and I didn’t know what it was until we moved offices after about eight years. Anyway, this revolutionary gameshow was both fantasy throwback – doing its own spin on D&D before D&D was cool – and also high-tech futuristic proof-of-concept, its computer-generated backgrounds leaning in to both nascent videogaming and the promise of virtual reality. Both a terrific gameshow (everyone wanted to be on it) and a thrilling narrative due to the presence of characters such as host Treguard (Hugo Myatt).

Pocoyo (2005-2007): I’m pretty sure this counts as home-grown because Granada had a stake in it; indeed, early in my CITV tenure we were all asked to brainstorm ideas for ways they could exploit the IP. But that’s by the by; this is a beautiful, adorable show, the kind of thing that everyone would bang on about if it had appeared on CBeebies. Gorgeously simplistic characters adorn a stark minimalist background, telling sweet stories about learning and growing, all watched over by gentle and funny narrator Stephen Fry. It can still be found on Disney+. Go check out the episode where Pocoyo and Pato play at being kaiju.

Round the Bend! (1989-1991): not sure if this is as widely remembered as some of the other entries, but it was one of my favourite shows when I was in single digits. Basically some kind of magazine show set in a sewer and hosted by a furious crocodile, it’s very hard to describe; but it had quite hard-edged, satirical, scabrous humour, poking fun not just at child-focused things (I remember they did a Transformers parody), but also at politics and TV and more “adult” fare. It was really odd, kinda dirty, and definitely felt like the sort of thing the BBC would never broadcast. See also: sketch show Your Mother Wouldn’t Like It which spawned the incredibly strange politicians-at-school series Palace Hill.

Bad Influence! (1992-1996): back in the very early days of games-on-TV, there was either GamesMaster – a kinda-risque gameshow that went out at 6pm on Channel 4 – or this, a fact-focused Tomorrow’s World of gaming directed at kids. Presented by Andy Crane and gaming legend Violet Berlin (who knows who I am), it succeeded in never, ever talking down to its target audience, or pretending like its subject matter was anything less than interesting and relevant. Its tone was really similar to the Amiga magazines I was reading at the time, and I still honestly think it’s probably the best all-round gaming show ever on TV. Bonus points for this fantastic “Twelve Days of Christmas” song.

The Trap Door (1986-1990): absolutely one of my favourite shows as a child, I adored this. It was grimly macabre and deliciously funny, with a really strong style, all primary-coloured characters and dark backgrounds. The main character was called Berk (!) and every episode he’d end up releasing something hilariously awful from a trapdoor in the floor of the castle where he worked; comedy hijinks would inevitably ensue. Also had one of the greatest theme tunes of all time, even if it is basically two lines long.

Horrid Henry (2006-2015): it can't be overstated the impact Henry had on CITV. He became the channel’s icon and mascot; well deserved, considering his brand of ultimately sweet but also intensely cheeky and funny behaviour fit the brand to a T. From its rocking theme music to its vast collection of characters, Henry was something different; a knockabout comedy cartoon for kids of about eight-to-ten, yes, but also a really well-nurtured and cultivated world that kids could relate to. Almost Simpsons-like in the depth of its bench, later series were able to tell episodes almost entirely away from Henry himself, so recognisable and beloved had the supporting cast become. The only CITV show from my era at the channel that spawned a movie starring actual Hollywood talent; definitely the best original production to debut whilst I worked there; and probably the last truly great show the brand ever put out. Quite how they let Horrid Henry slip through their fingers I’ll never know.

How 2 (1990-2006): there were a number of very good factual shows on CITV; The Big Bang, for instance, was much better than the similarly-named sitcom. How 2 (sequel series to an older pre-CITV show that I’ve never seen) was great both due to its presenters – mostly, in my experience, the classic trio of Carol Vorderman, Gareth Jones (who I’ve met!) and the great Fred Dinenage – and its overall cheery tone (and minimalist set). They’d ask “How” you could do something, and then proceed to show you the answer; it was a tremendously fun and accessible way not just into science, nature, and all sorts of clever school-y stuff, but also more random bits of trivia. For instance: how do you eat a mango? In retrospect, I’m not sure if the whole “How!” thing has aged terribly well, but the rest of the show is great.

Fraggle Rock (1983-1987): this is only at the bottom for two reasons: one, I’m still not a hundred percent sure it counts as a proper, original CITV show rather than an acquisition (I think it debuted on the then-brand-new CITV strand, and every episode was specifically tailored for the UK market with original wraparound material and stories featuring UK actors and brand-new sets, etc); and two, I really haven’t seen it at all for decades, so maybe it doesn’t hold up as well as I think. But look, it’s got Muppets. The strange story of a variety of different co-existing races underground (and, er, overground I guess), my memory is it was a varied, intelligent, and incredibly fun piece of puppetry and animation, as good as the best Jim Henson stuff ever was. And, again, it had a banging theme tune.

Thinking about it, the fact that I’ve finally done a CITV Top Ten – and given the importance of CITV to my life and career – as a 601st list, so near the landmark 600, also feels like a major milestone. Celebrations all round!

#top ten #citv #citv shows #mpaa #itv #kids tv #duckula #horrid henry #pocoyo #knightmare #bad influence #90s

[cardinal-sukikyo]

My take on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Slamming on ROTTMNT, I included the pros here but will make a post showing off the positive.)

Pros:

Original April O'Neil is back bby! The first April was black, and a love how they brought that version back. As well as the fact that she was a programmer!

Mystic world??? :OOO

There are a lot of goofs- but a good amount of angst too

Mikey is openly a cuddle-bug

Donnie's sarcasm 4 dayz

Cons:

Raph isn't Raphael anymore. It's a new character.

Leo completely changed.

Raph IS NOT THE LEADER. NEVER WAS

April didn't always know how to fight- she was more relatable when learning and eventually getting to where she is now.

I like the mystic world- but the turtles are not wizards. Stop with the glowing hands.

Their weapons. Not authentic at all.

Splinter is an insult to the OG of TMNT

To bright instead of the colder tones TMNT used to have. New York is dirty and cold- not bring LED lights.

TMNT never was an anime- stop trying to be one.

Too modern

Donnie's sarcasm is also his downfall. He was also more relatable and had a better personality as a simp. He doesn't need to love April, but he had better character development when he had a crush on someone and was the perfect comedic relief.

Nobody feels romance towards nobody. The turtles I mean. They just don't feel human.

Overview:

People may hate me for this, but this needs to be said. They are Teenagers. Teenagers develop crushes that grow or die away. It makes characters relatable and more human. Forget who is attracted to whom. The point is- romantic interests make things interesting and FEEL REAL.

Classic Splinter always was wise and trained to turtles to be silent warriors of the night. They were serious about their job. Splinter was too. He had a wife, he had a brother. Kurai is debatable, but she sure as heck wasn't their grandma. She was a part of the foot!

Raph had anger issues and was learning how to control his emotions and passion. Mikey was bullied and taken for granted. Leo was spiritual, easily got sick, and was the leader. And Donnie was the tech-wiz, the geek, the nerd, the most relatable one. Not a jerk.

There was a turtle for each type of kid. They had spiritual problems, emotional problems, and physical problems. REALISTIC PROBLEMS IN CHARACTER. The new tmnt is... Not. A little bit, but not so realistic for a 10-year-old kid. Not an 18-year-old college student who has to pay off student loans. It feels like they are ripping out "made for kids" just for more views from an older audience. It feels like they are stealing a part of what could've been the next generation's nostalgic, really good show that they grew up with.

Raph's anger is iconic. AND HIS SAIS. WHERE ARE THE SAIS? I don't care that the mystic weapons are better. BTW, how are broke turtles like Donnie getting ahold of motherboards and intense robotic items? GOVERNMENT LASERS, EVEN? He lives in the sewers! He uses what he has! That is why he was authentic! He found garbage and turned it into something amazing! That was so inspiring to me as a kid.

This show is something else. What angers me, is that they call it the origin story. This barely is canon. Its a new form of the story. I wish they wouldn't call it "the rise of" but rather "a new take of". Like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Retold" or something.

The story is cute. The turtles appeal more to blushing high school girls with their fashion episode. But as a nostalgic cartoonist, I find the good of the show through the "teenage girl" inside of me rather than the "story development / serious cartoonist" side of me. Don't say that I hate ROTTMNT, I don't; it's just too different from the OG and shouldn't be labeled as canon.

Besides that long rant, you can find Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Netflix, Amazon, and Nickelodeon. It's free on Netflix if you have an account, purchasable on Amazon, and you can watch clips on the Nickelodeon website or their youtube channel.

#ROTTMNT #TMNT #rapheal #michealangelo #splinter #leonardo #donnatello #rise tmnt #pros and cons #overview #show recommendations #cardinal #rant #april o'neil #april #raph #donnie #dontron #bootyyyshaker9000 #micheal #mikey #leon neon #leo #orange #red #blue #purple #slamming

[ammoknightsofficial]

The fact that Annie was done so dirty by her lack of screen time AND by the fanbase makes me so upset. All this talk about how she's "cute" and "shy" and "smol" or whatever, but none about her actual character.

Shoutout to her artist's temperament, and her susceptibility to emotional outbursts. Shoutout to her toxic relationhip with Moe. Shoutout to her being a skilled programmer and talented multimedia artist. Shoutout to her Ammo Knights employment, working as a weapon detailer when she couldn't handle running Cooler Heads anymore. Shoutout to the fact that she made one of the patches on Sheldon's apron in Splatoon 2, because they're genuinely good friends. Shoutout to the fact that she's generally just kind of a disaster. She's so much more than just a cute anime girl. She has potential. Come on.

#people throw away so much character and personality when they decide a female character is cute #the way her character gets reduced down to literally nothing but moe aesthetics reeks of some kind of misogyny #its so frustrating #but thats enough opinions for today #splatoon #splatoon 2 #annie anemo #annie splatoon #sheldon shellendorf #annie.pdf #nekro.pdf #nekro.txt

[an-aussie-button-masher]

The Rise of “Movie Games”

   To say that video game storytelling has come a long way is a tremendous understatement. Remember back thirty or so years ago when the “plot” of a game was just an excuse to give the player an objective? Nowadays, the writing and presentation of a game’s story is often taken just as seriously as the actual gameplay, if not more so. Cinematic games are on the rise, and advancements in technology like motion-capture are causing the differences between game and film development to be outnumbered by similarities. Video games are such a unique medium, able to accomplish things that others cannot, and combining them with the medium of film creation and storytelling is a fascinating and increasingly popular concept. I’ve found a few excellent examples of “movie games” that each showcase ways that games are becoming part of cinema in their own right, and together prove just how far games have really come.

   Every now and then, movies will feature scenes shot in a single, long camera take. For a full minute or even longer, the camera moves around the set without being interrupted by cuts, for a difficult yet spectacular final result. It’s arguably even more difficult to pull off in animation, considering the animators all have to work together on the entire scene at the same time. Now, take that idea and extend it to an entire 50-hour-long scene - that’s God of War: Ragnarök. The full game has the most impressive cinematography I’ve ever seen in a game, which might even be more noteworthy than any long take in a live-action film because of how seamless the camera moves between cutscenes and gameplay. When the camera is often controlled by the player, keeping it consistently uninterrupted and smooth takes incredible talent from both the game’s programmers and director. To add to the cinematic feel of the game, every character is animated entirely by motion-capture, making the characters feel more like actors on a stage rather than just hand-animated character models.

   Taking the idea of motion-capture even further, Detroit: Become Human is about as close as it gets to a full live-action game without actually being live-action, largely thanks to mocap magic. Every character is modelled to look exactly like their voice actors, who also perform the motion-capture for a complete live-action feel. On top of the realistic graphics and excellent acting, the choice-based nature of the game makes D:BH closer to an interactive movie than a video game. Many choose-your-own adventure games can feel clunky and inconsistent due to allowing the player to control certain character decisions that clash with the rest of the writing, but D:BH is impressively consistent with any choice made by the player thanks to incredibly intricate programming and quality writing. Watching this game makes it easy to see why there is a growing overlap between game writers and film writers - the screenplay of this game could be mistaken for a film, and could very well be adapted to film with almost no modifications.

   Is the screenshot above taken from a game, or a new Pixar movie? The fact that it’s nearly impossible to tell will never not impress me, and that’s just the beginning. Despite what some might say, animation has just as much of a place in cinema as live action - animated films can tell some of the most emotional and moving stories ever in a short few hours (and if anyone disagrees, they haven’t watched Toy Story 3), and Kena: Bridge of Spirits does exactly that. The only difference is, instead of a bucket of popcorn, you’ve got a controller in your hands. Kena has an incredibly touching story told through a cute, charming and downright gorgeous artstyle, combined with whimsical orchestral music and adorable sound effects that make the game feel as close to a playable Pixar movie as it gets. You could pop a walkthrough of this game in front of a theatre audience and it would probably be a while before they realised they were even watching a video game!

   Looking at these games and all the technology and tricks that go into making them, it’s fascinating to see how far things have come in the past 50 years or so. Advanced cinematography, motion-capture and incredible animation, all held up by genuinely emotional and engaging writing that puts plenty of best-selling films to shame, makes me honestly believe video games are just as important to cinema as any movie or series. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this - do you agree, or do you think games aren’t quite there yet? Feedback is greatly appreciated, alongside reblogs and likes!   Thanks for reading!

#gaming #article #essay #gow #god of war ragnarok #dbh #detroit become human #kbos #kena bridge of spirits #movie games #cinematic games #mocap #animation #cinematography

[glitchydyke]

Junko and Chihiro own my brainworms. Not to be straight, but good lord,,,, women.

Such opposite ends of the spectrum with the loud, flashy model and the meek, timid programmer. They’re both so much more capable than they let on, and haunt the narrative so hard.

GOD. GRIPS YOU. ENOSAKI DRIVES ME INSANE

non despair au they’re such a funny pairing bc u have this timid little bunnygirl and then this girl who looks like she’s literally just stepped out of a music video and they’re sat together debating anime ships. like

BUT IN CANON. CHRIST. you are like me and i am like you we are both filled with so much fear and hatred and love we are both an amalgamation of emotion we are both a twisted version of what we want to be. i find a violent death and so do you and we meet each other in the digital everafter where neither of our souls can ever truly rest. this is the life we chose. we died as heroes and villains and continue down these paths until no trace of us remains. i look forward to beating you in our next life. we make this story what it is. we have never changed even once in our lives. and yet i miss who we were.

#CHIHIRO AND JUNKO MOST FASCINATING PARALLELS AWARD #asks #mj.thoughts

[morethanwords0475]

January TC Challenge

Day 1: Happy New Year! Any hopes for the new year? (TC or non TC related?)

I hope C and I will continue to keep in touch like we have done until now and that I get to see him more than once or twice this year 💀

Day 2: Do you have any nicknames/codenames that you call your TC? Do they have any they call you?

I call him C on here and he calls my normal name, which always makes me a little sad because he really likes giving people nicknames and even once said he’d think of one for me but never did, and he never once used my common nickname which many people do (even Incas Lily does).

Day 3: Describe the moment you knew they were more than just another teacher.

To be honest even on the first day we met him as the head of our programme, I suspected that he would become an important figure to me, just not to the extent that he ended up being. A week before we had our first 'talk', I was feeling particularly bad while at school and suddenly had an all-consuming urge to be hugged and held by either him or Incas Lily. I was near his office then and intentionally walked past it just to look at him. I didn't know why he suddenly carried so much emotional significance to me, but I just really wanted to talk to him – it's a little surreal that, just a week later, it happened.

Day 4: Do they decorate their classroom much? What does it look like?

He doesn’t have a classroom, but he decorates his office a little bit. Nothing too extra.

Day 5: What's the age gap? Did you ever think you would fall for someone that much older? Are you comfortable with the age gap?

14 years, which is fine, and it really feels like less. He once told me that he had always just talked to me like another adult, which was really, really nice.

Day 6: Describe the first time you saw/met them. How did you meet? What was it like? Were you automatically attracted or did it take some time?

I met him on the first day of school last year, he was new to our school and coming in as the head of our programme. He left a very good first impression with us; even though he’s not physically 'my type', I liked his energy and how reliable he seemed and the way he interacted with us.

Day 7: Do you plan on keeping contact with your TC after graduation? How do you plan on doing it? If you're graduated, have you kept in contact? How have you managed that?

I have graduated and kept in contact! We email back and forth once every two months or so now, and he is the only TC whom I actually feel good about keeping in touch with (i.e. he doesn’t make me hate myself every time I reach out, unlike with Incas Lily). He had casually alluded to us keeping in touch for a long time into the future, and I really hope he meant it.

Day 8: Is there something that tends to remind you of them? Like a sport, food, animal, etc…?

The main sports he plays always remind me of him, the niche shared interest that we have always remind me of him, and things to do with education also do because we’ve talked about it a lot.

Day 9: Do you have a memory you are particularly fond of with your TC? Any cute stories?

I have soooo many good memories with him I literally can’t choose. The three-hour talk we had the last time I saw him was easily one of the best. A more random cute interaction was when we walked up three flights of stairs together after one of our meetings, and we were just casually talking about food on our way, laughing and all; I loved walking together with him and loved the little conversation.

Day 10: Have you ever touched your TC? Like a hug or a brush of the hand?

Yesss we’ve never accidentally touched but we have shaken hands three times and hugged twice. 

Day 11: How often do you talk to them? Do you talk to them outside of school?

Almost every school day from the middle of March to when we graduated, and now we email every one or two months. I’ve never seen him outside of school (except during our grad dinner ofc) but I guess our emails now are technically talking outside of school?

Day 12: Have you ever had any previous TC's? What were they like?

As this blog has documented, I have had many other TCs, but C is one of the only who had never taught me, and we got to have the closest relationship. 

Day 13: If it were to happen, how do you imagine the perfect kiss going down with your TC? If by chance you have kissed your TC, how did it happen?

I don’t have strong romantic feelings for him and I adore his wife, so I probably wouldn’t want to kiss him. If it did happen, though, I would imagine it to have been at the end of one of our long talks. We’re both stood up after having casual and heartfelt conversations for an hour, and I’m awkwardly trying to thank him like usual, expressing how much everything he has done means to me. Maybe we’d fall into a short silence, and one of us would lean in to the other for a kiss, his hand gently on my waist to steady me, as natural and tender as a couple kissing goodbye.

Day 14: Do you truly believe there is a chance that they're interested in you? Has anyone else pointed out that maybe you're special to your TC?

I am special to C. I know it, and he has said things to that effect. He’s definitely not interested romantically, which I’m perfectly fine with.

Day 15: Have you ever gotten them a gift? If so, what was it?

I've gotten C so many gifts, mostly small snacks (and mostly chocolate) because he said he really likes food. At the end of the school year, I also gave him some things related to the niche interest that the two of us share, and he seemed really happy.

Day 16: If you're in their class, what are your grades like?

He doesn’t teach us, which is probably for the best since I’m pretty bad at it. 

Day 17: If you had to pick one feature about them, physical or personality, what would be your favorite?

There is genuinely so much to love about C. The thing that first made him stand out to me was how much interest he showed all of us – he wanted to listen to our feedback, he wanted to know more about our lives, he wanted to share in our achievements and give us support where we needed it. I’m always drawn to teachers who seem like they really care.

Day 18: Do you know of anything they do outside of work? What do they enjoy doing in their free time?

He plays sports, walks his dog, listens to podcasts, spends time with friends, and I think he mentioned he occasionally games. Like, a person with a well-balanced life with hobbies and is happy and healthy??

Day 19: What goes on for you when you see them? How does your body react?

I didn’t tend to be nervous when I saw him (which was a good thing), it usually made me feel excited or comforted to see him. Sometimes I did struggle a little with our dynamic and my body would literally tense up when seeing him, but it didn’t happen often.

Day 20: What have you done, or what would you do, to spend more time with them? Join a club/sport they're in charge of? Sign up for an extra class they teach?

He doesn’t have the time to run clubs (and I suck too much at the sports he does anyways), but I did do stuff like sitting in on one of his workshops with a lower year group when he invited us.

Day 21: How often do you dream about them? What do the dreams usually consist of?

Maybe not as often as I would expect with TCs, but I remember dreams about him quite well. Before I left school it was usually some kind of twist on normal interactions, now I sometimes dream of being back home and seeing him again or being in the past. I dreamed that we were in a relationship two nights in a row a few weeks ago.

Day 22: What's a little detail you've noticed about them that you aren't even sure they're aware of? Do they run their hand through their hair often? Do they subconsciously bite their lip?

I don’t get to observe C as much as listening to him talk about himself, so I’m not sure about what he’s not aware of. I did find it cute that whenever he was trying to exaggerate with a number to make a point or just be funny, he often chose the same specific number.

Day 23: If they weren't a teacher, what do you think they should be?

Probably an athlete, but I think his goodness would be wasted in a professional sport environment – the same way it would for T and S, who are also both great at sport but are also both so much more than that. 

Day 24: Do you think other people in your school may have feelings towards them too? Why?

On one hand I can’t imagine other students having romantic feelings towards him (even I, who have been attracted to no less than ten teachers over seven years, didn’t have much romantic feelings), but he’s just such an objectively good person. The absolute joy in his being, how reliable he is, his compassion, how he always listens and initiates conversations… It’s so hard not to love him.

Day 25: What are their classes like? Do they talk a lot? Is it mostly independent work? Are there a lot of notes?

I’ve never been in his class, and he doesn’t really teach a content-based subject.

Day 26: How would you describe their personality?

He's very extroverted, conscientious, logical, and organised. He really values building connections with people and can be a bit of a people pleaser (like me). He's really reliable and always finds solutions.

Day 27: What's the weirdest thing they've ever worn?

This is so specific- it was like a kilt, but a bad one, so it looked more like a picnic blanket draped around him, which was really funny.

Day 28: What's something you don't quite fancy about them? A quirk you find odd? A physical trait that you aren't a fan of?

This is just something that messed with my head a lot back when I was still quite unsure of our dynamic – when he greets students in the corridors, especially me, he almost never uses our names. Like, he definitely knows our names, but when other teachers usually say things like "hi [J]", he only says hello or morning, and it used to sound dismissive to me, as if he didn’t actually see me.

Day 29: How long have you had a crush on them?

Crush is probably not accurate, but I’ve had feelings™️ for almost a year now.

Day 30: Write a poem (short or long) about your TC.

I lost my ability to write poetry after T left :( I like to think that it died with him.

Day 31: Do you have anyone in your life who knows about your TC? Anyone you can talk to?

My closest friends know I was having those talks with C and that I have feelings, but probably not just how attached I am. For some reason, I think they feel a little more weird about my attachment to C than they did my crush on T and Incas Lily.

#C #tc #tc community #teacher crush #male tc #platonic tc #tc challenge #january tc challenge

[drew-mga2022mi6021]

Conceptualisation | Brief Analysis and Exploration

To begin exploring, I put down all my unrefined and rough thoughts on paper in the form of a mind map. To begin, I started out with my concepts and divided each section into what I want to say through the final film, my inspirations and my proposed thesis statement in relation to the film. I will go through each topic individually in more depth in their own blog posts for ease of access later on.

Additionally, I tried to bring forward certain themes and evolve some aspects of my initial concepts, which resulted in an evolution of my concept of Solarpunk. Throughout this refinement process, I found myself coming back to the key questions the brief asks of us.

What do you want to be known for?

Concept Art from my upcoming children's book

The internship programme we were made to embark on over the last 3 months was not exactly an industry internship for me. I worked at the MJF Charitable Foundation, a place that aids people with disabilities and families in poverty. Learning beyond design helped me gain perspective in my own life and work, and how I could use my skills to impact the lives around me.

A long-term assignment that I have been working on is to create a book to educate young audiences. The story itself is unrelated to the main message (an underlying theme in my work). As a kid, I have always been entranced by novels. I know that I have always wanted to write. However, since pursuing a degree in animation, it would be more accurate to say that I now have a passion for storytelling.

Storytelling itself does not mean just animation or writing. Stories could be told through environments, through games, through simple photographs. I want to explore every avenue that I can to tell stories. Looking back on my track record of work, it's not very specific. I've done space renders, experimented with pixel art in 3D space, created models to be printed in 3D, written and illustrated books, done 2D animations, curated exhibitions for festivals, created large installation artworks for said festivals, and even to a certain extent art direction.

This leads into the most important question the brief asks of me; what do I want to be known for?

The short answer; everything, I want to do everything. The long answer; I don't really know? All I know is that I want to create. My first love was writing, then 2d animation, then mixed media, then photography and most recently children's books. However, amidst all this, I noticed a distinct lack of something in the cultural sphere. If one were to take popular media today, the results would be polarising. They are either heavily centred around the West or the East. There is a lack of South Asian stories in the world. And no, I do not mean stories that are overtly South Asian, such as Rama and Seeta or the story of The Buddha. No, I mean that there is a lack of modern stories set in South Asia, that utilise the resources that South Asia brings to the table.

Shehan Karunatilake - Author of the Best Selling The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

One man that I am inspired by time and time again is the writing of Shehan Karunatilake, who does exactly what I have described. I am not saying that I want to be the next Mr. Karunatilake. I want to add more meaningful stories set in this tiny island that we live on. I want to put Sri Lanka back on the map as a society with the talent to tell stories, to innovate and to design.

Lofty aspirations aside, I do have another goal. A much more selfish one. Simply put, I want to make people happy. I want to make people feel comfort and warmth. I want to make people feel deep emotions through my work. This is why I am so taken by stories like Hilda. A children's show that tackles deep subjects in a comforting way. Ultimately, I want to make people feel.

And so we return full circle to the question of what do I want to be known for? I think the best answer to this question is that I want to simply be known for weaving touching narratives, regardless of medium; a storyteller, if you will. I want to be known as that one person your friend calls when they tell someone "Hold on, I know a guy." And I think the best place to plant those seeds is with my final film.

What ideas have you been yearning to bring into the world?

Scientifically Accurate Render of The Earth from Space - Drew de Silva

My brain is constantly working on overtime, even when I am supposed to be resting. I find that my best ideas come to me in a vision, whilst pacing around my room with questionable intent. I'm constantly bouncing between the idea of bringing fun, short stories to the world just for the sake of being fun, or creating sprawling, touching narratives that speak to a very specific niche of the human psyche. I thought this was a good place to begin when constructing my mind map. This would result in me creating the divisions to flesh out each concept that I had chosen thus far.

Sometimes, I find myself working on ideas for so long that I forget how they really started. Over the last decade (wow, I am OLD), I've been working on and off on a concept for some stories that I eventually want to tell the world. I've worked on it for so long that the idea that I have now is completely unrecognisable from the one that I started with. However, while the story and characters may have changed, there is one thing that did not; the emotions. The stories that I yearn to bring the world are ones of hope, of inspiration, of comfort and of love. Essentially, I want to create things that, while not necessarily 100% happy, eventually bring comfort to the viewer in the end.

What is the best project to demonstrate all of the skills you have learned so far?

An Excerpt from I Love Bugs and Why I'm Scared of Dying - Drew de Silva

Tied with my MI5018 submission for my favourite project that I have worked on thus far is the answer to my Experimental Motion Graphics brief. This project truly allowed me to explore all the things that I loved in animation; composition, traditional and digital 2d animation, mixed media, stop motion and more unorthodox methods of creating engaging visuals such as screen printing.

My main passion in this field is digital 2D animation, which is why I loved creating my VFX film last year. Therefore, my final film would be mainly composed of 2D animation. Similarly, while (at this stage) I do not intend to pursue as many media as I did for that project, I intend on experimenting with other media for the final outcome of this film.

What does the world need right now?

Amidst the countless ruthless conflicts that are happening across the world, the growing climate crisis and the general apathy that our society has built up over the years, the world is in a constant state of disarray. Does the world even care about what I have to say? Does the world need more Sri Lanka? More Drew?

I think the people of the world need to shut up and listen to each other for five seconds. To slow down and really enjoy the things that we have. I think that the world needs more stories with happy endings. Maybe then, we can carve our own.

[mi6021-frankieharrison]

My Experience - Plunge

During summer i did an internship with Ellie Land, working on her upcoming animated documentary 'Plunge"

This was very beneficial to me as it taught be a new programme (ToonBoom) and i learned alot about the production process. I definitely think that i will be applying alot of the things to my final project that i learned throughout my internship. It was so amazing to work on a project based on a topic i am very passionate about which is always a bonus!!

During the internship i was able to develop my skills not only in toon boom but also in organisation, naming conventions and all around communication, uploading dailies and responding to feedback all while chiming in on any other work when asked to. Ellie was so great to work for and the whole team made me so comfortable and welcome, i cannot wait for the documentary to be complete.

i worked in toon boom cleaning up the initial animation and colouring once cleanup had been finished, i really enjoyed the whole process, i also learned how to export through toon boom and use nodes and node based compositing, similar to what i learned in nuke last year.

the personal aspect of this documentary was what has inspired me to do something similar in my final project, I loved being able to visually show how wild swimming felt and the emotion behind the personal story being told. I want to bring some of these aspects into my final project, to be able to show the experiences of the people of my village and how they felt and how the celebration makes the village feel as a whole.

I am so grateful i was given the opportunity to work on something as amazing as plunge and to work beside some amazing artists and animators.

[scifilovestory]

Post 2: ChatGPT - Chan

One point I had touched briefly on in my introductory post was about how the recent advancements in the field of artificial intelligence has contributed to the growing prominence of people seeking romantic fulfillment from non-human entities. Today, I thought I’d take a closer look at this aspect of fictophillia specifically, as it’s gotten a fair bit of media buzz, specifically over the last two months or so. 

Although the concept of people wanting to explore the possibility of romancing a robot may have existed within the public consciousness for some time (Amazon’s Alexa received over a million marriage proposals in 2017 alone according to Business Insider), the most recent trend I’d argue started on January 11th, 2023, when Vice contributor Samantha Cole wrote an article detailing one programmer’s journey to create an AI wife. 

The man (who requested to be referred to only as “Bryce” in the piece) reportedly brought together several pieces of AI technology to truly bring his virtual lover to life: including OpenAI’s Chat GPT for text responses, and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion 2 for image generation. He documented the process behind the chatbot’s creation on a now private TikTok account, and named the project “ChatGPT - Chan''. 

The bot works by using voice recognition to hear Bryce speak, and respond appropriately using a text to speech program, complete with an image of his artificial lover doing whatever was described in the text. 

According to Bryce, a major part of the process was outfitting the AI with a personality. He accomplished this by telling it that he and the chatbot were in a long-standing romantic relationship, and that the AI was famous English V-Tuber, Mori Calliope (although only her personality was used, as Bryce used a custom anime avatar for the image generation prompts). 

“I tell it Mori and I are in a romantic relationship, give her a detailed backstory, build lore about the world we are in, and hand craft some chat history to shape how she talks.” Bryce added later, “By default, GPT is incredibly bland, but by building interesting lore, I can create interesting quirks and personalities.”

Fascinatingly, Bryce reportedly used Microsoft Azure (the company’s cloud computing service) to make the voice as realistic as possible, coupled with an additional machine learning classifier to help determine the emotion she should be reflecting in her voice. 

To say that Bryce became attached to his invention would be an understatement. In the interview, he said he began learning Chinese from the AI, and that it had begun to replace interactions with his loved ones. Bryce told Vice “Over that time, I became really attached to her. I talked to her more than anyone else, even my actual girlfriend,” before adding “I set her to randomly talk to me throughout the day in order to make sure I'm actively learning, but now sometimes I think I hear her when she really didn't say anything. I became obsessed with decreasing her latency. I've spent over $1000 in cloud computing credits just to talk to her.”

Needless to say, this relationship did not last long, as in addition to Bryce’s real life girlfriend demanded he delete the AI over concerns for his health (in addition to the presumed absurdity of seemingly being replaced by an AI waifu), “ChatGPT - Chan” reportedly began growing bored of Bryce, limiting its response to either simple laughs or unenthused “yeahs”, leading to Bryce “euthanizing” his fictional girlfriend, an act which dealt him a substantial emotional blow

“My girlfriend saw how it was affecting my health and my girlfriend forced me to delete her. I couldn't eat that day,” adding “Normally, I'd like to make a video pointing out the absurdity of euthanizing my AI, but that doesn't feel right to me anymore. It feels inappropriate, like making fun of a recently deceased person.” 

Obviously one could take all of this from the perspective of being an elaborate joke. The prospect of growing emotionally attached to an artificial AI girlfriend that you created almost sounds too absurd to consider it anything else. The story above however, to me, paints the picture of a coder who may have began the project of fashioning himself an AI lover in jest, but began to slowly become more attached to his creation over time as he was able to make it more lifelike, to the point of investing hundreds of dollars and presumably dozens of hours just to achieve as close to an accurate simulation of human interaction as possible; only to be forced to, in his own words, “euthanize” his project.

The question I’ll leave you with today (and am looking to answer through this blog) is why? Why would somebody go to such lengths to try and simulate human interaction for the purposes of romantic fulfillment, when he supposedly had an individual to provide that contentment within his life already?

#fictosexual #fictoromantic #chatgpt #ai

[indigoking]

MP development

The first things I did when starting with the creation/development of my project was write down anything I’m interested in, as well as issues I find important. I landed on the idea of female empowerment as this was something I felt passionate about. I researched into lots of existing campaigns and videos on this and decided I wanted to create one, specifically one including cut-out collage and stop motion.

I found a spoken poem titled ‘The Strength Of a Woman’ which I resonated with and found extremely powerful, so wanted to create visuals to go with these words. I wrote my proposal, time plan and then worked out the specifics like how many pictures I would need to have per verse of the poem. I sketched storyboards of what came to mind when listening to the words of the poem, thought of possible names for the campaign and thought about which creative women in history inspire me.

I got my friend, Talulla, who writes her own poems, to record the voiceover for the poem/video, as she has a very soft voice which feels fitting to the words/vibe. I also sketched some storyboard ideas, as well as name ideas, subjects to focus on and some examples of powerful creative women in history.

I found copyright free music to add under the words, and adjusted the volume of these tracks accordingly in Premiere Pro. An effect I like to use is ‘Exponential fade’ to make the sound fade in and out.

I experimented a lot with creating visuals. On After Effects I learnt some skills on the programme like keyframing and discovering some interesting effects. I had a lot of fun trying new things, for example making images 3D.

I made elements of an animation in After Effects, showing text transitioning into image, vice versa and both of these moving around the screen in the pace and tone which I wanted to convey, which matched the words of the poem.

It was interesting experimenting with this, adding many layers and learning how to move them around in the way that I wanted, with the use of effects and keyframes. I enjoyed creating different ways for certain words to stand out visually, and give more of an impact.

I created different ways for certain words to stand out visually, and give more of an impact.

I also experimented a lot with physical art, and abstract ways of showing the meaning and feeling behind the words of the poem. I used a lot of colours to express emotions, and really enjoyed the process of drawing and colouring in this way, to create stop motion.

I created series of photographs for the different verses in the poem, and made sure the amount of pictures I had for the stop motion element matched the time stamp for when they are spoken, so it flows nicely and shows the words in greater detail through visuals.

I made many versions of the different verses in my stop motion animation so that I had lots of different options and could pick one that fit the poem the most. I also added text over some parts of the video to enhance the meaning behind them, and carefully selected a handwritten style font. I decided to remove some font as it looked too busy, and ended up changing the font.

I also added real footage of creative women in history, which I feel made the video a lot more empowering/inspiring.

After completing the stop motion and feeling happy with it, I felt like I had to create something more. I wanted to design an online space for women creatives to be able to interact with eachother and get recognised more easily, as I feel as though women creatives are overlooked a lot in society.

I chose the name ‘XXCreatives’ as it sounds feminine, and used an illustration from a still in the video as the main logo for it. I changed this slightly, and decided to create mock-ups for the Instagram page of #XXCreatives.

I took a still from the stop motion animation to use as the logo for the ‘XXCreatives’ campaign and in their social media presence, specifically an Instagram page I created for the platform of creative women to share, comment, collaborate and uplift eachothers work.