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unlimitedtrees · 10 months

Text

nearly all of the character designs from 'UNITRES Dreams'

(once again, this post didnt have a “read more” part in da original cohost post, so im putting it here... click more if U Dare !!)

so, trying to get back into making art again, i decided to draw brand new references of all the character designs from my game, UNITRES Dreams. cus why not. anyways these references arent Perfect.. some of em ive made better reference sheets before (while for this i just wanted to draw em all together with a sort of consistent color style and their current, up-to-date designs) and also i didnt get to draw Every character as it is Too Much and i am Too Lazy to draw all of the enemies and boss designs ... so ive just included the enemy and boss sprites for now.. but ill probably draw new art for them sometime.

Anyways. let me tell ya a bit about making Character Designs for this game. as ive talked a bit about in my post about making Character Sprites , making stuff for the game is hard because i am pretty much the Only person working on the game and i have to split my time working on the sprites between working on Every Other Aspect Of The Game , meaning i dont get to spend as much time making the artwork as detailed and polished as id want to.

and the same thing goes for making the Character Designs. sadly, i didnt get to make as many Actual Characters as i wanted (you can tell which are the Actual Characters as theyre the ones i Actually Redrew Here). when the project started, i only really had the Main Three Playable Characters in mind.. in fact most of the other Actual Characters didnt even Exist until the Very Very End of development.. which is the part im sad about. i just didnt have enough time to think about adding any complex new characters or figure out how i would Make a new character design . Which leads me to the Other Characters... which includes Most (but not All) of the Bosses and Enemies. Their designs are well , Basic . their designs werent really thoughtout ;they were created to serve a single purpose: to be made quickly so that the game could Have enemies and bosses. if i were remaking this game now, id probably remove or even completely Redo a Ton of the enemy designs (except the post-UNITRES Dreams enemies ... im kind of proud of them Lol !!)

thats just how things were. i didnt have enough time to focus on making character designs, so i didnt get to make a Ton of them and i had to make them Fast . in fact, early on in development, i hadnt really had much experience making character designs (as , before UNITRES, i didnt really make too many Original Characters for my games before), so i struggled experimenting and making characters for a lot of its development. And The Designs themselves .. a lot of them (even the ones i like) are pretty simple. Most characters are comprised of simple shapes and details , making them easy to draw and animate. and a lot of the early designs used Very Few Colors , which made drawing them quicker.

Despite All Of This , However, i am actually pretty proud of a lot of the designs ive made for this game (Especially the ones with the fancy new drawings i made here ..). while theyre simple, and while i wish i couldve made More characters with more unique designs , i really like the designs i got to make for this game ,with some of em being my favorite to draw even when im bored .. and i just felt like id talk about em.

And Well , Im Gonna Talk About Em !! click da 'read more' thingy if u want to Read More ..

the Main three characterz

"trees"

so first off , let me talk about "trees". before i can get into their Actual Design , let me tell u a bit of history so u can understand why theyre designed the way they are.

So . around November 6, 2018 , before UNITRES was really a thing , i designed the very first version of Trees that u can see above. while i didnt know what the game was going to Be , i had a Basic idea of what i wanted the Character to be from the very beginning. you see, Trees (the character) ,while having the same name as me , is Technically Not a self insert , Kind Of . I designed this character near the beginning of when i started entering a Very Low Point mentally in my life (which involves some personal stuff im not going to get into , Aswell as this point happening Around when Among the Others released) and i thought Very Negatively of myself . And So , this character is sort of an exaggerated version of the negative thoughts i had about myself at the time .

the main characteristics of the character was they Did Not Show Their True Emotions , instead bottling up their feelings and showing a very Fake , happy version of themself. theyre also kind of Fucked Up in the head and try to hide it . anyways theres more stuff going on with them that you can probably extract from both the games and the old descriptions in this concept art , but i wanna leave that as a surprise for when i get to make my next game. There Are some outdated things from the descriptions in the concept art , such as an idea where Trees would be Always Facing Forward , hiding away their backside. And Also , you may notice theyre referred to as "it" and "his" in this , which has well. Changed . teehee.

as for The Design Itself , i wasnt really sure what i wanted to go for at first. this character was actually one of the Few first Actual Character Designs i made at that point , so i didnt really have any idea on what to do. One day , i thought up of a Little Bear Looking character , and i tried drawing that character .. only for it to Sort Of look like a little fox-like character. and i imagined this character emoting mainly by very subtle details , such as the Hat and Ears changing shapes based on their emotions ..

Anyways , later that month , i drew the very first sprite of Trees , which ended up being used as the Idle sprite for the UNITRES tech demo. i wont be sharing What that sprite was originally for , as im saving it for Something , but i Will show you Trees' sprite evolution:

from left-to-right , it starts with the very first Trees sprite. Then there's the first revision, which was done when UNITRES Dreams started development. Then there's the second revision , done for the Newgrounds update in 2021. And finally, there's the TREES' ADVENTURE version, which is the current version of the sprite.

with the first version, the sprite is Pretty Close to the first concept art. However , iremoved the blue part in the tail as i couldnt get it to look good in sprite form (or i just forgot to include it.. idont remember). I also removed some details , such as the little hair and the red blush, as i couldnt really include them on such a small sprite.

Anyways , so how did the design mutate into the current design ? Well , over time , i ended up drawing their ears and tail Longer , and ended up giving them longer and longer limbs (as it was Hard to animate them with the tiny limbs they had). Eventually , it got to the point where i decided to just redo the sprites to make em consistent with how i was drawing them , and thats how i got the second revision.

But Then , i started consuming media Other Than Sonic ! i think the main thing that infected my brain was Spinel from Steven Universe ... while Trees' design Did have a bit of the sort of rubberhose , silly limbs before (along with a Bit of contorting their form , as u can see with the expressions in the original concept) , when i saw the steven universe movie , i saw spinel and was Immediately like " Oh My Goodness Gracious . I Need To Make My Character As Silly As Her". And so , I leaned more into the silly , stretchy limbs . You can see this in the following sprites:

Anyways , as i kept drawing them and consuming more Non Sonic media , i ended up experimenting more with their design and adding some small elements from my inspirations .. one of the other main inspirations was Wander Over Yonder ,where i decided to draw Trees' hat to be more Silly and Big , like Wander's hat. i also ended up perfecting how i drew Trees , giving them more Sharp lines , Bigger and Sillier "hands" and "feet" , making their tail Huge , and just giving them a nice silhouette that i like . By the time of the Newgrounds update , i realized Trees' sprites were kind of Outdated , so i ended up redrawing Most of their sprites , and ended up with the version you can see in the current version of UNITRES Dreams ..

And well , Im Really Really proud of how their designed turned out . I Like to draw them a lot. and i think the way their design evolved has ended up fitting with their Actual Character really well .. the sort of Round , Soft elements such as their Big , Blobby hands/feet and their cute , silly face make them look , on the surface , cute and Silly . But then you have the more Sharp lines and elements , such as with their head and tail which i think makes their character have a bit of depth .. if that makes sense .

Idk . im not good at words or describing things . i just think their design now works really well with what i want to go for . and hey , a lot of my friends have drawn them and have drawn them Really Really Well .. i particularly like how people interpret their design .. with some people leaning into the more Soft , cute elements of their design , while some have drawn them Really Really accurately .. its really cool and im thankful for everyone whos drawn them before ..

Last Thing ill mention about their design (and i guess this goes for Most of the other designs) : Most of the characters in UNITRES aren't really supposed to be any Specific Species . Theyre all just sort of weird , ailen-like characters who do not abide to any sort of rules or reality or whatever. Trees is just Trees ; they're not supposed to be a Fox or any sort of Real animal or species or whatever, and that goes for every other character.

??????

so here's the very first designs of ?????? , who for now ill unofficially refer to as The Pink Character. When i first started development on UNITRES , i Knew i wanted there to be Three main characters: Trees, and two mysterious characters. and when i started work on UNITRES Dreams (back when it was known as UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition) , i needed to create designs for them .. However , at this point i was still learning how to Properly Make Character Designs , and so i created the first sketch above ,and then created their first sprites , which . Well. I Ended Up Not Liking Their Design Very Much !

So . The whole point of this character is that they dont really know their own identity , with them not even having a Real Name . Their design was Supposed to be sort of Ambiguous .. However i was Not Sure what to do for their design . i wanted to make it so you couldnt really tell what their gender was (as originally , they were a girl ... but they do not have No Gender anymore) . However , when people first started testing the game , they just . thought they were a guy.

anyways . i just Did Not Like This Design . they didnt really have a Clear Silhouette .. they just didnt look like an appealing or memorable design to me. and i also i didnt like their color palette. So . when the game became UNITRES Dreams , i decided to completely redo their design . And Well ..

This is the first drawing of the new design. At First , i wasnt sure about their design , with things such as them being Pink and Having A Skirt, i was worried about Some People immediately being like "Oh , Theyre A Girl !".. but you know what ? Ive grown Very Very Attached to this design .. i think theyre both Cute and Recognizable , while still fitting the sort of character i was going for . Their sillouette , while not as Recognizable as the other characters , has enough goin on to where i think it is a bit recogniable and easy to read while still giving them a sort of Mystery regarding their identity .. if that makes sense . And their more monochrome palette compared to every other character helps sell that , i think .

i think theres probably some people out there who see this character as a girl , but i think theyre a good Non Gender Having character design . just cus theyre pink doesnt mean they gotta have Gender ! anyways , i love them. theyre my silly little strange creature. i hope you love them too .. there is so much i want to explore with this character in a future game .. and i think their new design has really stuck with me.

???

So , ??? , who i will refer to unofficially as The Blue Character, is supposed to Sort Of be the opposite of Trees (the character). they're Very Tired and Chill , not really too crazy or anythin. and i wanted their design to illustrate that, and well , out of every design ive made , theirs was pretty much perfect from the very moment i created them.

I dont know if i have any old concept of them on hand, but i Do have both the original sprites ,aswell as the newer ones which are pretty much the same as the old sprites , but more polished and with redone colors..

And, well. Yea . they didnt really change much ! The only aspects that changed was that i removed like , Two details that i felt cluttered up the sprites too much , that being the little Tired Eyebag/ whatever its called line beneath their eyes, along with the little Red Dot that was on their boots. Other than that , their design was pretty much Perfect. they were also pretty easy to make , as , with them being a sort of Opposite version of Trees , theyre pretty much based off Trees' design , except with a bunch of differences to make them feel like their own character (such as different body/head shape , a big silly hat , and Actual Boots).

there's nothing much for me to say about them. they're perfect.

the really gay ones

suzy, wavey, and their little Shine Catcher

Alright . so before i can explain These characters , u need a little bit of History .

So. when UNITRES - BRAND NEW WORLD Edition was "finished" , i went on to help with RRThiel and his game, MEGA MAN PERFECT BLUE. as you can see here, i worked on various backgrounds and tilesets for the game. Anyways , at one point , ithought itd be cool to remake the Intro Stage in UNITRES , as a sort of tribute to the game and also as a little extra thing for the new update i was planning on making (which ended up becoming UNITRES Dreams).

at first, this was Just going to be two levels based off the Intro Stage from Perfect Blue , However , later in MMPB's development , one of the backgrounds I did for one of the levels ended up being Completely Redone by other people on the team ,as my background didnt really fit the game's style .. However , i still really liked this background .. so I decided to reuse it for a new level in UNITRES , with it also being a tribute to the level in MMPB (though its a lot more loose compared to the Intro Stage level , Lol).

This level ended up becoming Greenhouse Frenzy in UNITRES , and i ended up turning what once was just going to be a two level bonus into an entirely new campaign with its own story in UNITRES Dreams. and with it being a whole new campaign , i wanted there to be New Bosses and New Enemies ..

So , for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1 , I was planning on a new boss ... and this boss was going to be ... Mr. Sauceman !

You See , for UNITRES Dreams i wanted to go Hard with including all sorts of little tributes to my friends and the people who helped with the game . Mr. Sauceman , being one of the composers of the game , let me use his character from the game hes working on as a boss in the game , and i thought itd be nice to have him be in Greenhouse Frenzy ,since that level is pretty much a big tribute anywayz.

So , Originally , i wanted the Sauceman boss to start out with a little Fake Out . You See, the MMPB level that Greenhouse Frenzy is based off has a robot master that i asked RRThiel if i could use for the level , but he said no. So , I decided for this boss that i would create a silly character Inspired by the robot master from the MMPB as a silly little joke , but then Mr. Sauceman shows up and that character explodes . And So , I Designed Suzy , a character who , while inspired a bit by the character MMPB , was made to be a bit different and also to be used for a silly little fake-out intro and to die in 5 seconds . You can see this on the reference sheet , where she didnt even have a name and is just referred to as "GF2 Fakeboss".

However . Two Things Happened : 1) I Grew Kind Of Attached To This Little character I Designed , And 2) I Ran Out Of Time. i couldnt implement the fakeout that i had planned ... and i didnt have a boss fight for Greenhouse Frenzy - Section 1.... So. I decided to just. Make her the boss fight of GF1. it just made sense ! i Originally had planned a boss fight based on the Magik Master boss from Chaotic Carnival , but reusing the character design for the silly fakeout ended up being quicker , and so she ended up being an Actual Character in the game.

And Then There's Wavey . she is a robot. i originally designed her as an enemy for the Intro Stage tribute level (a.k.a , Perfect City) , as i wanted it to have its own enemy. Her design is also Some What inspired by one of the robot masters from MMPB , though not as much as Suzy's is.

Anyways , despite Suzy and Wavey being inspired by characters from MMPB , i wanted them to be different and have their own sort of Character . And well .. their actual Personalities are different to the ones from MMPB , at least . In UNITRES Dreams , there is a hidden "Storybook" mode , which contains various stories which add a bit of Worldbuilding into the game .. and one of the stories details Suzy and Wavey . Basically , Suzy is a lonely gardener , who lives alone on her own strange little planet , who then travels across the galaxy to the Perfect City , where she ends up meeting Wavey , a military robot who Suzy becomes fascinated with ..

Anyways . my writing aint exactly the best , and i Refuse to go and reread the stuff i wrote for the storybook mode in unitres . but i tried my best to make suzy and wavey their Own sort of characters , having their own identity compared to the characters theyre based on. Oh , and by the way , suzy and wavey are gay LOL !! and they have a little baby plant that they raise . this is also told in the storybook but i unfortuately didnt get to explore this Much outside of that in the game... though there Is a secret you can find in one of the levels.

So. what do i think of these characters and their designs ? Well. Honestly. Im Not Sure . when i designed them both , i still wasnt Totally comfortable with character designs as i am now , and honestly . theyre not my Favorite designs . Wavey in particular is just . Well . Shes Just Metal Sonic in A Hat . she has her own little differences , but i cant lie . i probably coulda done better with her design . and suzy i think hasnt aged as well either . Idk. Also. In Case You Cant Tell , I am BAD with coming up with names . I Genuinely cant do it. i came up with both of their names on a Whim . i justdidnt know what to call them and i was running out of time LOL !!

anyways. last things ill mention are : the plant is a species known as Shine Catchers, which appear as enemies in Greenhouse Frenzy. Oh , and also , here's some concept art of them Lol !!

(oh , and i also forgot to mention: originally , suzy had green dots on her "hair", but i didnt know how to properly draw them on the sprites , so i left it out)

the Silly ones (a.k.a my favorite ones)

Millie

So . Millie is the most self-indulgent design Ive created .

Here's how it went: one December day in 2020 , I was sitting around bored as hell , when all of a sudden , the Silly Brained part of me Saw an idea pop up: A Tall , Hot , Cute Clown Man . And Instantly , I KNEW I had to draw him . But I Was in the middle of a Zoom call ... So . I opened up IbisPaint on my old Android phone , and drew the First sketch with my fingers that you can see above . And Instantly I Knew : I Had Done It . I Made Perfection .

More ideas grew , and i realized : I Could Do Something With This ! So , later , I came up with a whole reference sheet for him , and started planning on something: I was going to make More characters for UNITRES Dreams . You see , at the time , I was working on the v3.0.0 update for the game. This was Very Very late in development , before i even Planned there being a Newgrounds version (and before ninjamuffin convinced me to Make the newgrounds version LOL !!). Anyways. for so long , iwas disappointed that i didnt get to make a whole lot of original characters for the game .Most of the characters were either Enemies or Bosses. there was Barely any NPCs (aside from the guest character apperances).

i Also Realized: Chaotic Carnival , one of the most Important levels in the game , needed More love . So. I decided i was going to make new NPCs just for it , so that the level could feel even More alive and lived in. And that's when i created the Silly Trio , which started with Millie.

As for Millie's design , there isn't much for me to say. he is perfect. i love him and he is one of my favorite things ive designed. Yes , it Is self indulgent . Yes , i Do Want Him Carnally . teehee. Anyways , after designing Millie , i knew i had to design more characters .. which leads me to..

Goldian and Ellie

Goldian is a tall , polygonal magician man. He is in love with Millie. They are canonically dating.

Ellie is a bunny-like clown girl. She likes to entertain people with magic. I think she might be asexual , but i wasnt very sure when i created her.

Anyways. there isnt much for me to say. i Could get into some of the Character Lore perhaps . Millie , Goldian , and Ellie are all characters with troubled pasts.. they all had to run away from their homes due to circumstances , and they managed to find the mythical Chaotic Carnival, where they all met and decided to become entertainers. It gives them purpose , to see people happy. And they work under the Magik Master , a strange magician who has the ability to bend reality at will. They're all like a sort of Found Family .

that's all ill say about them. theres so much more i want to do with them in the future... i love these characters so much. theyre my favorite designs ever.

Oh ! Iforgot to mention . these characters (including millie) names also suck LOL ! Im not good with coming up with names !! all their names i came up with at the last minute

All The Other Characters I Forgot To Mention

the magik master

nothing much to say about them. theyre one of the first bosses i created, and i Kind Of like their design still , though i might consider redoing it so it fits with the rest of The Silly Ones ..

vie

nothing much to say about Vie . she's a flower girl, who spreads flowers to every level in the game. she got the flowers from the Suzy's Greenhouse ..

Misc. Concept Art

#TreesThinks #UNITRES #UNITRES Dreams #art #artists on tumblr #character design #characterdesign #gamedev #game dev #game development #indiegame #indie game #indie dev #indiedev #indie development

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streaming-yn · 3 years

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Hiya there! I really like your writing and was wondering if you could write something where forgetful y/n meets Technoblade- and also- can I be 🏹 anon if its not taken? :D

yeah yeah!! I don't know if you meant c!forgetful!y/n and c!techno or cc!both and I kinda like the heads of both soo ,, I did both !! I hope that's cool w you !!! n ofc, welcome to the crew 🏹 anon :)

part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5 // part 6 // part 7

part doesn't look like a real word anymore

pairing (platonic); c!forgetful!y/n x c!techno , forgetful!y/n x (cc!)techno

warnings; dark humor (punting kids, killing, hitman stuff, stuff along those lines!!)

Characters

met bc you're ranboo's sibling !! :)

you were looking for ranboo but couldn't find him (he was hanging out with techno) so you sent him a text on the communicator (whispering) to ask

him, being the protective brother (in lore, the world it's tons more dangerous and he knows) he is, he didn't really think and sent you his coords and said he'll be near there, he's hanging out with someone

he didn't specify who exactly he was with so you were like oh ok be there in a bit

you go the coords and see them through the trees, techno's pink and red colors pallet and ranboo's black half and tux standing out against the snow

immediately you're still, if you move they might hear you – techno might hear you, you look for a bit, going through a back and fourth in your head was what you were going to tell him actually worth what might happen if techno didn't like you? it's not necessarily important information, you just wanted someone to talk to about what you talked with Tommy about today and your brother was your closest friend – tommy tied for first place with him but talking to tommy about what you and tommy spoke about? that's be weird. you really want to talk now, so you don't forget, and your not the best with holding in stuff without snapping at people who don't deserve it

so you decide to go on anyways. he wouldn't hate you, right? you're not really on a side, you're more of a middle ground type of person so you're not connected to the government so he wouldn't hate you, right? and even if he did; your brother would never let him kill you; you reasoned with yourself, happy with the resolve you start forward towards them

thank God for your naturally quiet and agile movements, they would've noticed you before you were ready otherwise, you made it halfway to them and decided to make a little bit of noise so they wouldn't pull weapons as soon as you were right next to them

you threw a snowball at a tree causing both boys to turn and see you wave "hi! just wanted to talk with ranboo"

"well I'm talking to him, about something rather serious too, so leave." "okay so? I want to talk to my brother so why don't you leave?"

talking like this with the blood god was extremely risky, but you're also not the most well known for having smart, thought out decisions. in other words; you don't really think before talking, which can be both good and bad

people admire the honesty and what they believe is guts (it's not, you just don't have cognitive filters), on the other hand, though, it can, and will (and definitely has) land you in a world of hurt

ranboo's looking between you two anxiously, eyes showing obvious worry that this will escalate to a battle

as the piglin hybrid looked down at you like you were dirt under his boot you glared right back up at him, matching the energy he gave, as you grabbed ranboo's hand and started to drag him away

ranboo turned around to look at techno and waved "oh- uh- I guess we can talk some other time!", techno grumbled at that

though later he did let himself laugh about it, someone who looked quiet not being afraid to match his energy was amusing itself, but pair that with you dragging your brother along, not being careful of his foot placement causing him to almost fall many times and it makes it funnier

when he spoke to you again, it was clear neither of you held any grudges or anything but the "oh my god I hate you and we're literally enemies" bit continued, but it was obvious it was just y'all's dynamic

fans were in love with that dynamic and adored making art (comics, drawings, fics, animations, etc) of it :)

and despite everything the friendship and dynamic stayed the same, making fans cry

fans often worried about what would happen to y'all, because nothing in the dsmp stays the same – something bad always has to happen

quite a few ",,, what's gonna happen to c!techno and c!y/n's dynamic... something bad has to happen right? it's been good for way too long" tweets and most of the replies consist of "if something happens I'm blaming you" or "if anything happens I'm coming back with a bat" (both jokes ofc)

haha,, something bad eventually does happen but that's for a different time o/ (dw abt requesting for it! I already have a request where I plan to reveal it, however it will take a bit to get to, until then, enjoy the cliffhanger >:) )

content creators

immediately y'all match up on the same jokes and things!!

yk the thing like "wait, it's not what it looks like" "you kill people for money????" ".... .yeah" "and this whole time I've been doing it for free like a chum!!!"

that's y'all, you're the one who's doing it for free 💀

y'all met through the dsmp and started interacting so the lore won't be awkward and ended up becoming friends

(truth be told you were scared of him not liking you bc you were a fan of his content for some time now)

if you let him rant about Greek stories and such he'll let you rant about what you want to too

if you have any knowledge of old torture machines talk to him about it! like obviously torture is not good or anything but it's interesting to learn what happened in the past yk?

,,although maybe don't do that on stream-

I feel like after talking to techno for the first time and it going well you immediately go back to ranboo like "GUESS WHAT OMG"

"GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT :DD" "Well, hello to you too" "But what's up?" "SCARY MAN THIUGHT I WAS OK 👍👍" "Who? Literally every new guy you meet is "scary man" to you" (/hj /lh) "TECHNOOO!!!!!" "That's awesome, man!! :D"

depending on how you react to jokes about punting kids he would end up making them more often around you bc he finds your reaction funny

if it's normal, you have no reaction, or just laugh in reply, he'll make them a normal amount most likely

if it's something along the lines of "NOOOO !!!!!" he's going to end up making them more, and out of the blue too

"so, you really went far in streaming so far?" "yeah! I think it's neat! I didn't expect to-" "almost as far as the kid I kicked-" "NO !!!!"

there are a lot of times where you have to clear up what is and isn't lore because y'all's dynamic is similar in and out of roleplay

also yk,, people are starved of and wanting c!y/n and c!techno interactions so they're trying to get the crumbs they can – it's actually really funny

taglist: @cvsmixplant @l0ver0fj0y @youngstarfishdinosaur @icarusthefoolish @ophelia-enthusiast @decay-as-a-life-form @xxtwizztedxx @akino-akina-writes @qrimbarkk @milkydisaster @xx-smiley-xx

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sunflowerdaisybee · 3 years

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ok before i get into this one, just a reminder to you and to everyone reading to take care of yourself :)) don't overwork yourself, it's not worth it. take breaks every once in a while and make sure to drink water and eat three meals a day :)) with that said, may i request cc!dream working at a fast food place part time, and noticing that one of his coworkers has a really outstanding fashion sense? like they've got a shit ton of piercings and they always go crazy with makeup, and some days they'll show up dressed up real pastel, and then the next day they'll be wearing all black :> and eventually dream asks them to lunch because hes really curious about what mysteries his coworker holds :)) tysm! -froggy

You’re too sweet, also I had way too much fun with this, and don’t be afraid to just like, flood me with asks, it gives me something productive to do :] <3

Summary: Your odd fashion sense draws Dream to you, he had to know why you dressed like that

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Dream X Reader

Pronouns: They/Them

[A/n]: Requests are open :] <3

From pastels to all black to looking like an art teacher, the changing of your style never stopped. And neither did Dream's growing curiosity. He never failed to notice your over-the-top makeup and crazy piercings, for a Wendy's worker you sure were odd. Then again he wasn't the most normal person either, he insisted everyone call him Dream over his real name, he was taller than 90% of the other workers there, and he wasn't very close with anyone else there. Unlike you who made friends with everyone.

Another day, another outfit. Dream had tried to have as many shifts with you as possible, it was kinda creepy but he really enjoyed seeing your outfits every day. It had gotten to the point where he had started talking to his roommate about you.

"Just ask them out already, I'm sick of hearing you bitch and moan over them."

"Wow real nice of you Sap." Dream got up and left Sapnap's room, heading to his own. Though all he could think about was what Sapnap had said. Maybe he should ask you out.

Today was one of the slower days, where there simply weren't many people ordering food, and when they did it was typically small orders. Hearing the bell on the door chime, Dream waited for the customer to come to the register, that didn't happen though.

"Hey, guys! I heard today was slow so I figured I'd swing by with some cookies." There were a few cheers as all the workers came to the front of the store.

You opened up a bag and handed wrapped cookies to each of them, except for Dream who stayed in his spot. He didn't think you'd have cookies for him, why would you when you've never spoken to each other about anything other than orders.

Though wrong he was again as he watched all the workers disappear back to their spots and you walk over to him.

"Here, I made enough for everyone." You handed him the same wrapped cookies that you had everyone else, a cherry smile on your face. Dream took the cookies with a shy 'thank you,' he also took a second to look over your outfit.

Today you were wearing all black, from head to toe. How were you not sweating in that? You said your goodbyes to everyone, saying goodbye to Dream last.

"Hey uh, wait a sec."

"Oh, what's up?" You stood on the opposite side of the counter, waiting for him to speak.

"Would you uh, like to go on a date sometime?"

"I'd love to! Here," you grabbed the pen that was laying on the counter and grabbed Dream's hand. You quickly scribbled your number onto his wrist before saying goodbye and leaving.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was the day that the two of you would actually be going out on a date. Dream had asked you to lunch on a day that you both had off, saying that he knew this really nice café that he thought you might like.

The two of you had agreed to meet there, which is where Dream currently is. He was dressed casually, but still nice, his outfit consists of black, ripped, skinny jeans, a hoodie, and black sneakers. Though once he saw you he couldn't help but feel odd, you were dressed in an artsy, pastel-type outfit. You definitely looked more café-ready than he did.

Suddenly he was nervous, here you were looking like some kind of god while he looked like he belonged at the mall. He had never felt more stupid in his life.

"I like your shoes! Where'd you get them?" He was surprised by your sudden question, fumbling over his words for a second before sputtering out a sentence.

"I uhm, I got them from a store, in the mall. I uh, I forget what it's called, but it's upstairs by the Hot Topic, I think." You giggled at his fumbling.

"I think I know where you're talking about, anyways shall we head inside?" Dream nodded and held the door open, letting you walk in first.

After ordering and getting your stuff the two of you sat down at one of the booths. Things were quiet for a moment as the two of you settled in. Though the quiet was soon broken by Dream speaking up.

"So uh, not to come off as rude or anything, because frankly, that's the last thing I want to do. But uhm, why do you dress like that? I mean like why do you always change your style and go full out on everything when you're simply working at Wendy's?" You looked surprised before smiling at him.

"I just like all the different styles, I can't pick one! And I go all out because why not? I use my clothes to express my individuality. Riddle me this tall man, why do you insist everyone calls you Dream?"

"Well, maybe I prefer the nickname over my real name and use it to express my individuality." The two of you laughed at his response, the nervousness slowly melting from Dream.

"You got me there dude. But yeah, I mean you only live this life once so might as well make the most of it." Dream nodded.

"That is true, plus I don't know how I'd get through slow days without seeing your outfit. You really know how to brighten up the room, even if you're wearing all black." You both chuckled and you thanked him.

"So, where's our next date gonna be?"

"You wanna go on a second one?"

"Of course! Why else would I bring it up?"

"Oh ok, uh how about we go to the movies? Or maybe to the carnival that's coming to town next week?"

"Let's do the carnival! We gotta get matching outfits though!"

"Ok." Dream agreed and you started talking about different styles and what you could do for matching pieces. The two of you eventually settled on matching sweaters.

"Alright, well then since we both have tomorrow off, we can go shopping then. Sound good?"

"That sounds great."

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antiloreolympus · 3 years

Text

7 Anti LO Asks

1. Do you know what really gets my blood boiling about this comic? Persephone and Demeter's relationship.

In the myths, Demeter and Persephone loved each other more than anything. Their reunion is so important - it marked the coming of spring and growth. A whole cult was dedicated to this for crying out loud. Yes, the myths were far from perfect, but the Persephone and Demeter myth showed the strength of a loving mother-daughter relationship with Demeter searching endlessly to find her child that was ripped away and had her innocence forcibly taken.

Now, RS is not the only author to make Demeter this over-bearing mother type in order to put more positivity onto the Hades-Persephone relationship. However, RS takes this trend to a whole new level - to the point where I would even consider it misogyny.

How is it, she takes this beautiful mother-daughter relationship and makes it out to be an abusive and controlling one, and then takes the Hades-Persephone relationship from a forceful one to a loving, perfect relationship with no problems? How is it ok to ruin one relationship to elevate another?

I understand that many versions of the myth try to downplay Hades' actions, and even make it so Persephone actually falls in love with him and there is no rape. But it doesn't change that this relationship was problematic, and meant to represent the loss of innocence.

Then fans have the gall to claim this comic is feminist and then claim on top of that that Demeter and Persephone's relationship was the same in the myth? These fans clearly don't know the myths, and neither does RS.

Making Hades a good person is fine. Changing it up a bit to make Persephone's loss of innocence something else is also fine. But ruining Demeter and Persephone's relationship? Especially when Persephone has to spend half the year with her? So horrible.

2. im sorry, but rachel cant introduce KRONOS coming back and then dropping it for several episodes to focus on a stake-less trail and persephone not knowing what lingerie to seduce hades in. like thats too much of an earth shaking development and huge stake plot point to just ignore for months to focus instead on something as minor as hxp's relationship, which only points out a huge flaw: why is hxp's relationship so minor in this? isnt the whole point supposed to be about them?

3. I think LO completely dropped the ball over Hades’ characterization.

From the first ep I thought ok, this is good, we have some bones to see he’s not that lucky in love and is just tired and lonely, and while ignoring the creepy actions towards Persephone, I thought ok, Artemis hates him, Hestia hates, even Ares hates him, maybe once Persephone finally sees the underworld and probably gets to know him it’ll be a clever twist and they’ll be proven wrong. The underworld will turn out to be fair and just, the citizens will love Hades, he’ll be revealed to be a good leader and king and not like his brothers, it’ll be like everyone saying Hades of myth isn’t actually that bad, and it’ll help reinforce why this sweet and bubbly Persephone wants him, she sees the real him, not the mean rumors and assumptions, this is perfect.

And then it just didn’t happen. The exact opposite happened, actually.

We’re shown the LO underworld is cruel and unjust, where the poor dead are forced into slavery and Hades created a harsh class divide with him and him only on top, the citizens hate him, the underworld gods don’t trust him and openly seem ok if he’s taken out of power, he’s not a good leader and king and doesn’t even want the job yet keeps it for his own ego and grip of power m, and on top of it all he is just like his brothers, if not worse. He loves to get violent over any little slight against him, he hoards wealth and resources to enrich himself while his citizens starve and struggle to survive, he’s corrupt, he controls all the media and laws to bend to his will, sleeps with his brothers wife for centuries behind his back while claiming to be holier than thou, he has sex with his secretaries who are made dependent on him for any way to survive, and now he lusts after his barely legal intern who is also now dependent on him for her way to survive, and that’s only what I remember off the top of my head.

LO perfectly set up to prove Hades isn’t the devil or the false pop culture assumption that he’s evil and to show some actual facts from myth, and yet Rachel only ended up reinforcing exactly that and even making him even worse with her made up ideas, all while thinking having Persephone ignore or excuse it somehow makes it not bad or even a good thing. It’s honestly kind of impressive just how bad of writing that actually is.

4. Chapter 172 is not that interesting. It’s setup had me excited to see Hephaestus and Hera and learning more about echo, but it’s cut so short. Because again the story can’t leave HXP out for 2 seconds.

I can also see why Zeus is gonna go insane.

5. i agree w/ other anon. LO should have pulled a PJO or a BoZ and just made up OCs and have them interact with the gods than whatever Rachel thinks shes doing, which is lying she's being accurate and faithful while completely changing all of it, removing what is needed, and adding what isnt so that it lines up with no actual myth besides like, various 50 shades fanfic she read in 2015 and some popular tumblr text posts.

6 . the animation studio behind blood of zeus literally can only draw one face for the men and one face for the women and they were still able to make the gods all look distinct and hot while LO can't even bother to use more than 6 colors and can only have the women look as tiny as possible with the biggest boobs while the men are all just lego men.

7. ////FP SPOILERS////

Okay so like I stopped reading LO way back before season 1 ended, and a majority of my knowledge of the series comes from what I read here on your blog which is enough for me lol and I decided to read the latest 5 chapters just to see what's up (on zahard. I refuse to give the actual series any views)

And I just. Could not take the whole scene with Daphne running from Apollo seriously? The anatomy and art inconsistency was so distracting that i genuinely could not find it serious. Even when Thanatos discovers her hibernated body I couldn't take it seriously because of how she looked?

And when Hades had that call (??? Was it a call? Or his inner dialogue? I couldn't really tell ngl) with Zeus and said he's causing Persephone unnecessary distress, and that she didn't pose any threat. B!tch??? She killed a ton of mortals??? She has no control over her powers???? She's literally a fugitive for the aforementioned things??? She apparently woke Kronos up? (Idk if anyone knows about that, again my knowledge only spans to whatever I read here) Hello????

And I have a lot to say about the chapters starting the trial but I'll only mention one thing; Hades saying "I don't think blindly supporting my little brother would be doing him any favours (as a ruler)" had me cackling. This is coming from a guy blindly supporting a girl he's literally only known for a few weeks, who's like what, only recently turned 20? Sit tf down Hades you're not cool, you creepy ass overgrown smurf.

Overall I still hate this series lmao. Regarding art though I feel like I wouldn't be so miffed about the anatomy much if the character designs were consistent and the story was compelling. They literally change hairstyles and body types frame by frame, and it's distracting.

The timeline from what I read here is laughable. 4 years in publication with almost 200 chapters and you're telling me only like a month has passed canonically. That's wild and such poor writing.

And as someone who literally will sympathise with any lead character pretty quickly, the story makes me hate them. It makes me want to root against them. I also hate the fact this trash is somehow top ranked on webtoons when so many other stories are far better then it.

Anyway, many thanks to this blog for existing and allowing me to dump so much text here to vent out my hate for this series lmao. You the mvp fam, hope you're having a good day 🥂🥂🥂

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

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fantastic-rambles · 3 years

Text

The Snakes’ Deception

Fandom: Haikyuu!! (@aikk00's Racing AU)

Characters (in order of appearance): Kozume Kenma, Kuroo Tetsurou, Yaku Morisuke, Sakishima Isumi, Daishou Suguru, Fukunaga Shouhei, Yamamoto Taketora, Haiba Lev, other Nekoma members (not mentioned by name)

Warnings: Physical Violence, Language

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: When the Snakes, led by Daishou Suguru, come to challenge Kuroo for the title of Drift King, the Nekoma Crew isn’t going to take that lying down. But when the Snakes start to play nasty, the stakes are raised even further, and Kuroo has to fight to stay calm and prove that he’s the undisputed champion.

[A/N: RIP my dozen other drafts for other stories. I actually was planning to write this a few days before the Daishou art (also by aikk00), except I knew practically nothing about drift racing so I needed to do research, lul. I watched Tokyo Drift, some Initial D, some Grand Tour, and did a lot of reading online on drift racing and drifting in general, but tbh, I still don’t quite understand the mechanics (I don’t drive stick and I can’t go out and learn how to drift), so I apologize if this is horribly inaccurate. :P]

"The road condition looks good today, but it's still a little wet from earlier. Watch yourself going into the turns so you don't end up spinning out. The Snakes will probably do something though, especially since they asked you to race with Sakishima before Daishou. It should be okay when you're in the lead, but be ready to take defensive measures when you're chasing. My guess is that they'll try to take advantage of your skill at closing the gap and your power-over drift to orchestrate some sort of accident," Kenma commented quietly without looking up from his laptop, his fingers tapping away as he inputted a continuous stream of data. He seemed oblivious to the roar of the crowd outside the car, and Kuroo reached over to tousle his black-and-gold hair affectionately.

"Got it, Kenma. Anything else?"

"I know you won't listen, but you should just go all-out from the start. Not your usual way of racing. But if you do end up chasing, just do a normal drift and keep space between you and Sakishima. If they are aiming for an accident, it's more likely to happen when you're on the outside, so it'll slam into your side and Sakishima will be safe. But your numbers look good. I'm just going to tell Yaku-san to put a little more air into your rear tires," Kenma replied, closing the lid on his laptop and pushing open the passenger-side door, letting the sound of cheering and taunts into the vehicle. After he'd left and closed the door, Kuroo rolled down his window to light a cigarette, letting the smoke drift out into the night sky. Kenma hadn't said anything that he hadn't expected--especially with regard to the Snakes--but it was always reassuring to get their analyst's perspective before a race. Kenma wasn't the type to get fired up like the rest of the crew, but that cool-headed analysis was part of the reason they were able to climb so high in the rankings despite not always having the best cars or the best drivers. The ridiculous title of "Drift King" that he'd somehow ended up with was the result of Kenma's work as much as his own.

Still, Kenma was right. Even if it meant getting into an accident, Kuroo didn't intend to change the way he drifted. Part of the thrill of these races was the pure adrenaline high from going fast, especially when there was the risk of injury or even death. It was the reason why he'd mastered the power-over drift so that he could keep accelerating through the turn, and swung close enough to his opponents during his chases to make them panic. Even against the Snakes and their underhanded dealings, he'd show them that his way of fighting was still better, no matter what they threw at him.

He looked up when a shadow fell over him as Yaku leaned over his open window, the electric pump in his hand.

"You're good to go, Kuroo. Go ahead and show off," Yaku shouted over the din. Kuroo nodded, flicking his cigarette out the window and rolling up the glass. Yaku stepped back as he revved the engine, pulling up to the starting line where Sakishima was already waiting. Unlike most racers, Kuroo preferred chasing from the start to throw his opponent off his game. Before he'd inherited the title of Drift King, he'd been known as the Comeback Kid for his knack for overcoming what was traditionally seen as an unfavorable position. But the psychological benefit of overtaking the opponent and the pressure it put on the other racer, in addition to his skill with his clean lines and sharp angles that allowed him to do so consistently, had eventually shot him to the top of the Tokyo drifting world.

At the signal, Sakishima peeled past the starting line, and Kuroo quickly shot after him, staying close to his tail as they sped down the course. Even though his heart was racing, his head was completely clear, every sense focused on the view just beyond his windshield. Both he and Kenma were confident that Sakishima wouldn't try anything until the turn, but that was no reason to relax, especially at the speeds that they were going. Still, nothing happened when they reached the first clipping point, and Kuroo's eyes narrowed as he quickly estimated the distances and speeds between their cars, making his calculations swiftly and throwing himself into a drift just a heartbeat after Sakishima.

And it was perfect. His hand rested casually on the wheel as his tires squealed, sending up plumes of smoke as the tail of his car whipped around the curve, flying nearly parallel to Sakishima. The Snake seemed rattled as he spun into the next turn, turning slightly wide as Kuroo effortlessly stuck to him, their cars nearly touching as Kuroo grinned. It was pretty clear already which of them was the better drifter, not that it had ever been a question.

He let the car carry itself into the third point with just a few adjustments on his side, almost laughing as Sakishima had to drag on his own wheel to make the turn. The perfect chance presented itself almost immediately, and he aimed for the gap in Sakishima's barely controlled swing. But then, suddenly, the other car was spinning out as the Snake overcompensated, an out-of-control, two-ton wrecking ball flying toward him.

Kuroo jerked his wheel, pulling himself out of the drift and spinning out himself, the two cars making donuts on the road until he couldn't tell left from right. But the ominous crunch of metal never came, and when his car finally screeched to a stop, Kuroo slapped himself out of the harness and kicked his door open, stepping out onto the asphalt and casting his glare out at the spectators, looking for one specific slit-eyed face in particular.

"Daishou!" he bellowed, stomping toward the crowd and seizing the Snake by the collar, dragging him over the barrier. "What the fuck was that?"

But the other man just stared at him, all wide-eyed innocence. "'What the fuck' was what, Kuroo-san? Isumi made a mistake. Everyone saw that. He's not used to wet roads, but that's why I asked you to run with him so he could get some practice, because you're the only one good enough to not get hurt if he really fucks up. Like he did."

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Kuroo spun and slammed Daishou onto the ground, making the Snake wince as his back made contact with the asphalt. "That trick had your slime smeared all over it. You wanted to use Sakishima to take me out so you'd win the next run by default. If I hadn't been expecting something like that from you, I'd probably be in an ambulance on my way to the hospital right now."

Sakishima had caught up to them and was now clinging to Kuroo's arm, trying to pull him off while babbling insincere apologies. Kuroo shrugged him off impatiently as Daishou's hands landed on his wrist, trying to make him let go, but Kuroo shook him like a terrier with a rat, the adrenaline and testosterone giving him an incredible high.

"Really, Kuroo-san. Ask anyone. They would all say that it's a normal accident," Daishou protested. "You know these kinds of things happen all the time. But you're okay, Isumi's okay. No harm, no foul, right?"

The crowd was murmuring in the background, but Kuroo couldn't hear what they were saying through the blood pounding in his ears. He was just drawing his fist back to punch that smarmy smile off the Snake's face when a deluge of water crashed over both of them. Sputtering, he looked up to see Shouhei holding an empty bucket, Kenma standing beside him.

"Cooled off, Kuro?" Kenma asked in his deadpan voice as he approached them. "Or should I ask Fukunaga to get another bucket?"

Kuroo grimaced, shaking the water out of his eyes and hair as he leaned back slightly, still not letting Daishou go. Kenma crouched beside him, speaking softly, so that the crowd couldn't hear.

"You know that the Snakes are just like this. To everyone else, this does look like a normal accident. If you go any further, you're the one that's going to get a bad reputation. Right now, we can still pass it off as the heat of the moment. Let him go, Kuro."

"Yeah, listen to your girlfriend, Kuro," Daishou taunted. Kuroo's expression shut down, and he drew back his arm again. But this time, Kenma clung to it, still hissing in his ear.

"Stop it, Kuro. You know that everyone says that. They've been saying it for years. It doesn't mean anything. Stop letting him get to you!"

Kuroo grimaced again, but he listened to Kenma, letting his friend quietly talk him down until he was calm enough to shove Daishou away and get up. Accepting a towel from Shouhei, he tousled his hair dry while glaring at Daishou, who got back to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Sakishima-san forfeited the run," Kenma continued, still talking in his flat, measured tone. "So you'll be up against Daishou later. Are you up to it?"

"Fuck yeah, I'm ready to beat his ass," Kuroo snarled, and Kenma nodded at Shouhei, who ran across the asphalt to retrieve Kuroo's car. They'd probably replace the rear wheels to be safe, and then Kenma would have to run his checks again, but when they were done, his car would be better than new and more than ready to run the cheating bastard into the ground.

He reached into his pocket to pull out his pack of cigarettes, bending over to accept Kenma's offer of a light, and took a deep drag to steady his nerves. Being emotional during a race was the fastest way to get a ride to the morgue, so he needed to re-center himself. By then, the rest of his team had caught up to him, and Tora's particularly heated spiel about Daishou and his team helped bleed away most of the anger as they walked back to the starting line. Kenma had slipped away at some point, and Yaku was nowhere to be seen, so they were probably working on the car while he settled down. Really, he didn't deserve his friends.

By the time they arrived back at the beginning, the cool night air had washed away the rest of his irritation, which was probably Kenma's intention in making him walk back with the others. Shouhei and Yaku had just finished installing new tires, and Kenma was hunched over his laptop again on the curb, only looking up briefly when Kuroo sat down next to him.

"Thanks."

Kenma shrugged, his face bleached by the light from his screen. "I'm just doing my job."

"I mean earlier."

Kenma shrugged again, and a comfortable silence settled between them, broken only by the clicking of the keyboard. The rest of the team was huddled around the car, making checks and occasionally bringing Kenma more numbers, gradually shifting to sit around their captain and his brain, filling the silence with their chatter as other drifters made their runs.

"Hey, wait! You're playing a game, Kenma!" Lev protested, peering over Kenma's shoulder. "What about the race?"

"Kuroo will be fine," Kenma replied calmly as Kuroo looked over at his screen too, which seemed to be displaying the view through a sniper's scope. "His car's fine, and Daishou wants to beat Kuroo. If he tries the same thing, it'll be suspicious, and even if he did, if Kuroo doesn't spin out again, then Daishou will lose. And Kuroo is better than him, so if he does try anything else, it'd be more likely that he'd mess up and Kuroo would still win. His best chance at this point is a fair fight, and that means Kuroo could drive laps around him all day."

Kuroo grinned, standing up and stretching. "Well then, I guess that's my cue to get ready. I'll see you all at the finish line."

He walked over to his car, standing by the driver's door and just running a hand over the shining, red exterior for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, he got inside, strapping himself down. The familiar feeling of exhilaration that he got just before a run made him smile as he pulled into place behind the next pair of cars, watching out of the corner of his eye as Daishou pulled up next to him.

And then, soon enough, they were flying down the road, Kuroo chasing again, keeping the pressure on his opponent. As Kenma had said, there was no way for Daishou to beat him, and he proved that as he took the lead at the very first bend, hitting the edge perfectly while gunning his engine through the whole course, making the best run that he'd probably ever done and leaving Daishou in his dust. If it was possible, he was even sharper on the turns than he had been against Sakishima, pushing himself and his car to the utmost limit. And there was no better feeling than watching the Snake come up to him to shake his hand after his loss, smiling like it hurt his teeth.

"As expected of the Drift King. But it won't last forever. Someday, someone will knock you off that throne."

And Kuroo had smiled back, the smirk that he knew infuriated Daishou more than anything else.

"Come at me whenever you want. I'll beat you down every time."

[A/N2: This isn't KuroKen. They're just really good childhood friends, so Kenma knows how to calm Kuroo down because they've been part of each other's lives for so long, and Kenma in particular is good at paying attention to people. Kuroo gets pissed at Daishou for calling Kenma his "girlfriend" not because of the implication that he's "whipped" (because Kuroo is perfectly secure in his masculinity), but rather because I have a headcanon that Kenma got teased a lot for being "girly" (weak, thin, kinda androgenous, etc.) growing up, so Kuroo still gets upset when that's used to insult his best friend (even though Kenma honestly doesn't give a fuck). But they're not in a romantic relationship; they just spend a lot of time together.

Of course, if you wanna interpret it as KuroKen, that's your prerogative, but that wasn't my intention in writing this.]

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyū!!#hq #hq!!#hq racer au #fan fic #fanfic #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo #daishou suguru #daisho suguru #daisho #daishou #nekoma #mine #at least i finally wrote something lol

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chanluster · 4 years

Text

future works

just some future projects i would really like to do ! even though i have literally zero time since school is about to start but we love overworking!!

i will keep adding to these as i’m constantly getting ideas !!

1 — the consequences of boredom | lee felix — {m} {c} {f}

summary — you and felix were not suited for the wild chaos of friday night parties and wasting yourself away to strangers. instead, you were suited for spontaneity, wild car rides to nowhere, and each other.

warnings — 1980s! skater boy! felix, reader and felix are basically losers, felix is also a mf stoner, best boy though, a lot of alcohol consumption, swearing, drug usage, unsafe driving, making out, teasing, (kind of) dirty talk, fingering, oral (f. receiving), unprotected sex (stay safe homies!!), orgasming, felix is the softest mf dom, reader is whiny but felix handles is so well, slight bit of fluff, slight bit of angst, and yeh!

expected word count — 5-8k

2 — 10/10 | bang chan — {m} {f} — DONE !!!

summary — you and bang chan had no secrets between one other. each detail of your life would be discussed with your best friend of forever, no matter how insignificant it may be, through a little system you both had concocted — through a small rating. a number out of ten. a simple concept, used from being a child and rating your cookie a solid eight out of ten to your later years in high school, giving your first kiss a measly five. however, when you confess an average rating of your sex life in one hazy evening, chan decides this dilemma cannot be solved with buying you consolation cookies. he must simply raise that rating, all by himself.

warnings — friends to lovers! au, college! au, music! major chan, music! major reader, you both are literally soulmates, came out the womb holding hands, so much teasing, sexual! tension! so! much! fucking! sexual! tension! chan has a massive fucking cock (i mean isn’t it obvious already), shit loads of making out, aggression, fingering, oral (f. and m. receiving), unprotected sex (stay safe homies!!!), semi-public sex, (kinda) hate sex, orgasming left and right, ex! hyunjin, who’s also really bad at sex lmfaoaoao sorry king, chan is a massive massive massive dom, but there will be soft dom moments, shit ton of fluff, teensy weensy bit of angst, and basically yeh basically me venting out my love for chan once again.

expected word count — 10k +

3 — forgive me, father | lee felix

— {m} {f}

summary — felix’s only desire was to draw saints, please god and help the sinners of florence. you, on the other hand, only desired the little church boy, painting away in the cold halls of the cathedral. so when you stroll into confession, uttering your pleasured sins to him, blushing felix decides to change you for the better, not knowing he’s being led to a change of his own.

warnings — churchboy! felix, art model! and rich daughter of a lord! reader, set in 15th century florence cause the v i b e s!!! felix is initially a very good boy, hyunjin is his massive fuckboy friend, some fluff, sooooo much dirty talk, oral (m. receiving), kind of sub! felix but gradually gets more confident, reader KNOWS she is sexy as fuck!!! (as y’all should be feeling too 🤬) kind of whiny felix, orgasming, semi-public sex, basically a shitshow

word count — 10-15k

4 — aboard the han | han jisung — {m} {c}

summary — being on board the ship of the most notorious pirate to sail the seven seas was not necessarily the most ideal situation for you, a mere scullery maid who only wished to escape her dull life. han jisung, the captain of han, has other ideas for you — consisting on making you scrub the decks, make the food, watch his back for traitors all around him. most importantly, though, through indecipherable stares and greedy hands, he wants you by his side.

warnings — carribean pirate! jisung, scullery maid! reader, jisung is such a filthy motherfucker, reader is a massive brat, based around the west indies, will have to include fictional details as there weren’t any koreans lurking in that area, quartermaster! changbin, jisung is a fucking tease, a few slang sprinkled here and there, shit ton of language, sexual innuendo, will see misogynistic attitudes, chan is a villain baby i’m so sorry, jisung is so fucking hot, aggressive as fuck, sexual! tension! making out, fingering, oral (f. receiving) unprotected sex (stay safe homies!!) edging, orgasming, basically this is a shitshow

word count — 10-15k

back to masterlist

#stray kids #skz #stray kids imagines #skz imagines #stray kids smut #kpop imagines #stray kids fluff #stray kids dark hours #stray kids soft hours #skz smut #skz oneshots #stray kids oneshot #kpop smut #stray kids hard hours #future works #hopefully i can do these before second half of 2021 #will keep adding to this !!

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jadethest0ne · 3 years

Note

35! Go for it! ✨

Oh right, for this ask game! I had nearly forgotten about it XD

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

If there was one fic-related thing I’d want to ramble about it’d be specifically being a comic artist, and the different things I experienced going from the Pokemon fandom to the RotTMNT fandom as a comic artist.

I spent 5 years creating a Pokemon comic called “Liberty”, based on a nuzlocke playthrough of Pokemon Soul Silver (basically pokemon on hard-mode with permadeath involved for those of you who don’t know what a nuzlocke is). Meanwhile, it’s been just over a year since my first foray into creating comics for the Rise fandom.

The Similarities

The Disparity between Fanart and Fanfiction

Being a comic artist is odd sometimes because I basically do both fanart and fanficiton at the same time. I can understand and vibe with what a lot of both fanartists and fanfiction writers go through and deal with. This is why I feel like I can answer a lot of these fanfiction questions despite a good chunk of my story-telling being visual.

I am also aware of the disparity between fanart often getting a lot more eyes and attention than fanfiction. Deciding to write a piece of fanfiction instead of draw it out in comic format is often a calculated choice on my part, because writing prose takes more energy from me and often gets less rewards via views and interaction from readers. But despite it taking more energy, it takes less overall time for me to write something out than draw the same story, so I often factor that in when deciding which medium to create a story in.

I feel bad that a lot of fanfiction writers don’t get the attention that they deserve because of this disparity, so may I remind readers to please please PLEASE support your fanfiction creators and interact with their work! It seriously means a lot to them! Even a little message or a reblog will do! The main similarity between these two fandoms is this disparity, and I think it’d be awesome if we could get the number of interactions between fanart/fancomics and fanfiction to be more equal.

The Differences

I’m more popular as a Rise artist?

So, as I said, I spent 5 years making a Pokemon comic and 1 year creating a bunch of Rise comics. And yet I think I got more (or at least the same number of) viewers on my Rise comics in that one year than on my Pokemon comics in 5 years. I certainly got a similar number of followers, despite the differences in time. One of the main reasons for this is likely due to the social media platforms I posted on. I posted “Liberty” on deviantart and on the Pokemon Nuzlocke forums, the latter being particularly niche. As for my Rise comics and artwork, I branched out to other sites including here on Tumblr, Instagram, AO3, and Twitter (though insta got fewer comics due to the image size restrictions). The number and popularity of the sites I posted Rise artwork to are more than deviantart and that is likely a big reason. The other reasons for my increase in popularity may be for some of the other differences...

There aren’t that many comic artists in the TMNT fandom

I could probably name only a handful of consistent comic creators in, not only the Rise fandom, but in the TMNT fandom. And I mean the long-running, over-arching story type of comic creators. There aren’t that many of us. There are tons of artists and fanfic writers out there, yes, but very few that combine the two.

Meanwhile the Pokemon community has TONS. Especially the nuzlocke community. Heck, the Pokemon nuzlocke community started and was named because of a popular comic detailing the events of the creator’s nuzlocke challenge playthrough of Pokemon Emerald. You get a little bit more lost in the crowd amongst so many other comic artists in the Pokemon community, but at the same time have more people to learn from and relate to in that way.

My involvement with the Fandoms has been different

There’s been a lot of collaboration and working together among creators within each respective fandom. I feel like personally, a lot of my collabs with Rise creators has been a lot more direct and more personal than the kind of things I did in the Pokemon fandom.

For example, in the Pokemon comic fandom, it was really common to cameo each others’ characters in your comic, or include each others’ comics or characters in memes. This wasn’t always a planned thing, though we would ask each other for permission. I joined a Pokemon comic discord, but most of my interactions there and on other platforms involved brainstorming help. Not only that, but sometimes the community was a bit more competitive as well. For instance the Nuzlocke Forums would hold an “extravaganza” every year where folks voted on various categories to vote for the best nuzlocke (I won “Best Pokemon” and “Most improved” in 2018 :3 ).

Meanwhile with the Rise fandom, I did more things like art trades, collaborative art pieces, and zine work. These were a lot more direct and planned out and involved a bit more trust and interaction with other artists. I also became close friends with the folks in the discords that I joined as part of a Rise server, beyond just “fellow creator”.

As a result, I found myself doing a lot more serious artwork and even created other fics for the Rise fandom beyond just my comics, while when it came to Pokemon I stuck mainly to my “Liberty” art/comics.

More eyes, less interaction and visa versa

Again, this could be mainly a differences in what social media I’m using, but a big difference I found between readers of my work is that I got A LOT more people commenting on my Pokemon comic than on my Rise comics. I may be getting more views on my TMNT comics, but boy did I get more interaction with my Pokemon comics. I would get at least 5 people leaving these in-depth analysis or guesses of what would happen on each page for my Pokemon comic, not to mention the dozens of other reactions I would get in the comments. And despite that comic being on hiatus for a year, I still get some comments on it!

So, unless I know the commenter personally, I feel a little less involved with my readership with my Rise comics than my Pokemon one. Which is a little sad. I do appreciate you all who appreciate my work, but I feel like I appreciate you from afar and can only go “awww” at the things y’all leave in the notes or on the anonymous asks I get, instead of being able to thank you more directly.

Rise readers are a bit less patient

I get lots more people asking me “when the next page is coming” on my Rise comics and fics much more often than on my Pokemon comic. This virtually never happened with my Pokemon comic. Granted, I was way more consistent with “Liberty” and it had a set schedule, whereas my Rise comics/fanfics never have. But still.

I really DO NOT like those kinds of asks/comments. Please do not ask me when the next one is coming out. It makes me feel stressed and ashamed and pressured, which can create negative feelings around my work and make me less likely to finish them. I get that you’re excited, and that’s cool. But literally no one likes those kinds of comments.

For perspective, “Liberty”, my Pokemon comic, has been on hiatus for nearly a year and I’ve gotten maybe two comments to that effect, and they were newer readers who weren’t around at the time that I announced my hiatus and the reasons thereof. My “Liberty” readers have been so patient with me (bless them), and I feel a real loyalty to that kind of readership. I don’t know when, yet, but I really want to get back to “Liberty” someday, not just for myself or that story that I lovingly crafted, but also for them.

Pokemon was a hobby, Rise is a passion

Likely due to the fact that I have made a lot of close friends within the Rise community, and the fact that it has helped me immensely through this really tough year, I feel so much closer with the Rise creator community. Pokemon was a thing that I did for fun as a side hobby. My TMNT related comics and art have pushed me so much further in my art, gotten me involved in various projects, gotten me into creating animations, holy heck was I sucked into this fandom in such a short amount of time, and I love it so much.

I have been a fan of Pokemon since I was a kid, and I never thought I’d find a piece of media that would capture my attention and adoration as much. I think at a point when I was shifting from the Pokemon to the Rise fandom I said something along the lines of “I feel like I’m cheating on Pokemon with Rise”/j but it’s kinda true, haha!

In the end, both fandoms and the people in them mean a lot to me, and I’ve grown a lot from them as an artist and a person. I will be forever grateful to the other creators, readers, artists, writers, friends, collaborators, etc in both.

Thank you all very much!

#ask #ask game #ramble #long post #pokemon #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #fandoms #fandom #community #thank you #jadethest0ne #nuzlocke #willowaudreykeyes

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verifiedaccount · 4 years

Text

More movies (and a tv series) on youtube to keep you busy

List 1 / List 2

Here’s a third update of movies that you can watch in full on youtube since you’re stuck inside

Documentaries about movies:

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1992): Featuring interviews with more than two dozen major cinematographers and a ton of clips, this is a useful and enjoyable primer for anyone interested in learning what a DoP does

Vittorio Storaro: Writing With Light (1992): This is a shorter (40 minute) television doc focusing on one specific cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, famed for his collaborations with Bertolucci and for shooting Hollywood movies like Apocalypse Now and Reds

The Epic That Never Was (1965): In 1937, Josef Von Sternberg started shooting an adaptation of I, Claudius starring Charles Laughton as Claudius. Dirk Boagarde hosts this lively documentary examining why the film was never completed, featuring the surviving footage from the 1937 shoot.

Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980): Kevin Brownlow and David Gill’s 13-episode miniseries about the silent film era is considered the gold standard for documentaries about film history, but the impossibility of negotiating the rights to all the clips used at a reasonable price has kept it off of dvd or blu-ray. Luckily, that didn’t stop someone from putting it on youtube, although episode 12 has in fact been blocked due to a copyright claim.

Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow (1987) Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3: Another Kevin Brownlow and David Gill miniseries, this one, as you’ve probably guessed, covers the life and films of Buster Keaton over three episodes.

More movies:

Powell/Pressburger: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, aka the Archers, were one of the greatest writer/director teams in film history (and a favorite of Scorsese, who seemingly made it his life’s mission to ensure that their films were restored and available), and three of their incredibly charming, magical movies are on youtube. Of the available ones, I Know Where I’m Going! is probably the best to start with.

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945): Dave Kehr on the film: “Michael Powell's 1945 film resists easy classification: it opens as a screwball comedy, grows into a mystical, Flaherty-like study of man against the elements, and concludes as a warm romance. Wendy Hiller, in one of the best roles the movies gave her, is a toughened, materialistic young woman on her way to meet her millionaire fiance in the Hebrides; Roger Livesey is the young man she meets when a storm blows up and prevents her crossing to the islands. Funny and stirring, in quite unpredictable ways, with the usual Powellian flair for drawing the universal out of the screamingly eccentric.”

A Canterbury Tale (1944): The Criterion jacket copy: “Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s beloved classic A Canterbury Tale is a profoundly personal journey to Powell’s bucolic birthplace of Kent, England. Set amid the tumult of the Second World War, yet with a rhythm as delicate as a lullaby, the film follows three modern-day incarnations of Chaucer’s pilgrims—a melancholy “landgirl,” a plainspoken American GI, and a resourceful British sergeant—who are waylaid in the English countryside en route to the mythical town and forced to solve a bizarre village crime. Building to a majestic climax that ranks as one of the filmmaking duo’s finest achievements, the dazzling A Canterbury Tale has acquired a following of devotees passionate enough to qualify as pilgrims themselves.”

Gone To Earth (1950): Made under unhappy circumstances (David O. Selznick producing), this is a gorgeous technicolor romance starring Jennifer Jones as a nature loving young woman forced into a choice between two “civilized” men, with tragic results.

Straub/Huillet: If you’re looking for something easy and relaxing to watch during the quarantine, I’d recommend literally anything else other than the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. J. Hoberman on the couple: “Straub-Huillet, as they preferred to be called, are cinema’s conscience — an antidote to all the junk movies you’ve ever seen. Drawing on Kafka, Cézanne, Brecht, Schoenberg and Malraux, to name only some of their best-known sources, Straub-Huillet films are meant to raise ethical questions on subjects as varied as proper camera placement and the appropriate political approach to the subject.“We make our films so that audiences can walk out of them,” Mr. Straub once said, perhaps not altogether in jest.” Of the available ones, Class Relations, their adaptation of Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika, seems to be agreed upon as the easiest place to start as it’s the closest to a straightforward narrative, although History Lessons has also been recommended as a relatively easy starting place by some people. Not Reconciled, which compresses an epic Heinrich Boll novel following three generations throughout multiple timelines into 52-minutes, is not recommended to start with. MUBI did a retrospective of their works and had essays commissioned for each one to help viewers out so I’ll link those with each film. Hit Closed Captions for subtitles.

Not Reconciled (1965): Here’s a 10-minute video essay by critic Richard Brody that will help you have a slightly easier time with Not Reconciled if you decide to give it a try. Here’s the MUBI essay

Othon (1970): In the 17th century Pierre Corneille wrote Othon, set in ancient Rome. Straub-Huillet’s adaptation is shot in the actual ruins of Roman palaces with modern buildings and cars visible in the background. The MUBI essay

History Lessons (1972): An adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Business Affairs of Julius Caesar. From the MUBI essay: “In the film, an unnamed young man tours Rome and conducts interviews with toga-clad members of ancient Roman society on the subject of “C,” meaning of course Julius Caesar. It plays like Citizen Kane shorn of any of the flashbacks that bulk out that film: here, it is all exposition, reminisces, impressions. Interspersed through these sedentary discussions are a series of randomly protracted car rides through the city, all recorded in unbroken takes from the backseat of the young man’s Fiat 500.From this brief description alone, I’m sure you can see why structuralist-minded academics in the seventies had a field day.“

Fortini/Canti (1976): From the MUBI essay: “In Fortini/Canti, the Italian Communist writer Franco Fortini reads aloud from his Dogs of the Sinai (only recently translated into English for the first time), a memoir of his life as an Italian Jew and an extended reflection on the aftermath of the Third Arab–Israeli War of 1967 and its representation in the Italian media and by the political class. [...] Like all of Straub-Huillet’s movies, this astonishingly combative film follows an internal rhythm born out of the particulars of landscape, of speech, and of the physiognomies of its actors. It begins with an extended recording of a television newscast about Israel/Palestine (thus distancing the audience from the warped words and images on screen), a quotation from Fortini that connects like a punch in the jaw (“People don’t like having to change their minds. When they have to, they do so in secret. The certainty of having been tricked turns into cynicism. Gain for the cause of conservatism”), and then alternates between short jabs like these and more sustained verbal and visual attacks.”

Too Early/Too Late (1982): Serge Daney on the film: “No actors, not even characters. If there is an actor in TOO EARLY, TOO LATE, it’s the landscape. This actor has a text to recite: History, of which it is the living witness. The actor performs with a certain amount of talent: the cloud that passes, a breaking loose of birds, a break in the clouds; this is what the landscape’s performance consists of. This kind of performing is meteorological. One hasn’t seen anything like it for quite some time. Since the silent period, to be precise.” The MUBI essay

Class Relations (1984): The aforementioned adaptation of Kafka’s Amerika, often recommended as a place to start with Straub/Huillet. The MUBI essay

Hitchcock: Back to fun stuff, three Hitchcock classics.

The 39 Steps (1935): Dave Kehr: “As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work.“

Shadow of a Doubt (1943): Kehr again: “Alfred Hitchcock’s first indisputable masterpiece. . . . Hitchcock’s discovery of darkness within the heart of small-town America remains one of his most harrowing films, a peek behind the facade of security that reveals loneliness, despair, and death. Thornton Wilder collaborated on the script; it’s Our Town turned inside out.“

Spellbound (1945): No one would argue it’s Hitchcock’s best and the psychoanalysis is very dated but with Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, and Dali-designed dream sequences there’s still enjoyment to be had.

Ozu: One of Japan’s most beloved and revered filmmakers, he’s primarily known for his post-WWII family dramas, but his career stretched back to the silent era (although most of his silent films are lost). I Was Born But... is a good place to start but it’s not representative of the style he’s known for. Late Spring is where his later style fully emerges, and it’s a good place to start, so you might want to go in chronological order with these (Tokyo Story, widely considered one of the greatest films of all time, is also not a bad place to start).

I Was Born But... (1932): Jonathan Rosenbaum on the film: “One of Yasujiro Ozu's most sublime films, this late Japanese silent describes the tragicomic disillusionment of two middle-class boys who see their father demean himself by groveling in front of his employer; it starts off as a hilarious comedy and gradually becomes darker. Ozu's understanding of his characters and their social milieu is so profound and his visual style—which was much less austere and more obviously expressive during his silent period—so compelling that the film carries one along more dynamically than many of the director's sound classics. Though regarded in Japan mainly as a conservative director, Ozu was a trenchant social critic throughout his career, and the devastating understanding of social context that he shows here is full of radical implications.“

The Only Son (1936): Criterion’s jacket copy: “Yasujiro Ozu’s first talkie, the uncommonly poignant The Only Son is among the Japanese director’s greatest works. In its simple story about a good-natured mother who gives up everything to ensure her son’s education and future, Ozu touches on universal themes of sacrifice, family, love, and disappointment. Spanning many years, The Only Son is a family portrait in miniature, shot and edited with its maker’s customary exquisite control.”

Late Spring (1949): Ignatiy Vishnevetsky: “Each shot in Late Spring is striking on its own; the mature Ozu belongs to that rare category of filmmakers whose work can be recognized from a single frame. But together—with all their abrupt shifts in visual perspective and time—they become a mosaic, deeply poignant and ultimately mysterious in the way it envisions a relationship between two people trapped by how much they care for one another. There are domestic dramas, and then there’s this.“

Tokyo Story (1953): Dave Kehr: “The film that introduced Yasujiro Ozu, one of Japan's greatest filmmakers, to American audiences (1953). The camera remains stationary throughout this delicate study of conflicting generations in a modern Japanese family, save for one heartbreaking moment when Ozu tracks around a corner to discover the grandparents, alone and forgotten. A masterpiece, minimalist cinema at its finest and most complex.“

Early Spring (1956): Ozu on the film: “I wanted to portray the life of a white-collar man — his happiness over graduating and becoming a member of society. His hopes for the future when he got his job have gradually dissolved and he realizes that, even though he has worked for years, he has accomplished nothing worth talking about. By delineating his life over a period of time, I wanted to portray what you might call the pathos of the white-collar life...I tried to avoid anything that would be dramatic and to accumulate only casual scenes of everyday life in hopes that the audience would feel the sadness of that kind of life”

Equinox Flower (1958): Vincent Canby: “One of Ozu's least dark comedies, which is not to say that it's carefree, but, rather, that it's gentle and amused in the way that it acknowledges time's passage, the changing of values and the adjustments that must be made between generations.“

Late Autumn (1960): Peter Bradshaw: “Another gem from the Ozu canon, a masterpiece of tendernesss and serio-comic charm, as tonally ambiguous and morally complex as anything he ever made.“

And the tv series:

The Armando Iannucci Shows: You may know Armando Iannucci from his films, In The Loop and The Death of Stalin, or from some of his other television shows like The Thick of It or Veep, or from his involvement in all the Alan Partridge series with Steve Coogan. You probably missed The Armando Iannucci shows, his stream of consciousness sketch comedy that ran for one season back in 2001 (it didn’t help that it debuted in September of 2001), but it’s probably the most purely funny thing he’s ever done.

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bythebigcoolingtower · 4 years

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Eye on Springfield - An Interview with Raymie Muzquiz

Since working on eighteen episodes of seasons two and three of the Simpsons, Raymie Muzquiz has enjoyed a strong, thirty plus years career in the animation industry, including directing eight episodes of Futurama’s second run. Here, Raymie talks about his spell on both shows, his other projects and the industry itself.

Let’s start at the start, how did you get into animation and end up at Klasky-Csupo?

In 1988-89, I was working for a movie trailer company. I was a production assistant and then a post coordinator for about 2 years. I learned a lot about film post production and worked on a flatbed editor, dubbing machines, etc. (all pre-digital). However, it was nonetheless a miserable, unartistic, poorly-paying job that laid bare all those awful “Swimming With Sharks”, fear-and-loathing tropes of the movie business. My boss was a horror. He’d yell at me about the dressing in his salad, or the variety of bread on the sandwich. I was his presumed personal assistant to deride. Yet he would shamelessly “lick the boots” of celebs and execs higher up the food chain. To this day, I cannot watch movie trailers. On the rare trip to a theater, I sit in the lobby and have my wife text me when the feature starts.

During this awful period I would look daily through the trades for another job. One day in the Hollywood Reporter there was an ad that included a picture of Marge (I think). Klasky-Csupo (just blocks from my apartment!) was looking to staff for Season 2 of The Simpsons. Since I storyboarded all my student films and some action sequences in live-action low-budget features at Roger Corman’s Concorde/New Horizons in the late 80’s. I applied for a storyboard position. What happened next gave me whiplash. I was given a test. Hours after turning the in the test I hired as a staff storyboard artist to start two weeks hence and immediately given a freelance assignment.

How did I get this plum position with zero experience? This requires some context. The Simpsons was an unexpected TV-animation phoenix rising from the ashes of a poverty-row industry. It is little exaggeration to say that the TV animation talent pool (as opposed to feature animation) consisted largely of old, alcoholic and broken-spirited artists doing Saturday-morning hack-work, subsuming their talent to low budgets and low cel counts. The necessary talent were simply nonexistent for this new, hip renaissance. The doors opened to the young, the students and the inexperienced like me; someone who didn’t go to art school nor drew for a living. It was a singular event for me. I was ignorant that there was even a difference between animation and live action storyboards. I was even naive about my drawing ability. Imagine my reaction when I saw trained artists draw in a professional environment. It blew my mind! My only saving grace was that as a live-action film graduate, I knew film language. I could stage without “crossing the line”. Scenes “cut” together and “hooked up” and I was staging in depth rather than in the traditional “proscenium” cartoon style. My acting was restrained, not broad or cartoony.

I did my first storyboard freelance while still at the trailer company. It was for Jim Reardon; his first directing assignment: Itchy & Scratchy & Marge in 1989.

Can you explain the work you did on the Simpsons?

Everybody probably knows what storyboarding is, so I’ll keep it short. It’s the visualisation of the script/story. It’s TV animation’s biggest step from script to screen. You are staging the characters in space and acting them out and breaking it up into separate scenes that informs the entire rest of the process. Design, layout, key posing, action and timing build off the storyboard.

When you were assigned to work on the show what were your thoughts? It was a phenomenon by that point.

The first season’s episodes of the Simpsons were being re-runned to death. I remember doubting if they’d successfully make more before the buzz died off. When I was hired I couldn’t believe my luck. The Simpsons was THE hip show of the moment. To actually be a creative team member on something fresh and original AND get paid more than beggar’s wages was like winning the lottery.

How closely did you work with the directors and writers, what kind of notes and feedback did you receive?

When I arrived for my first meeting, Mark Kirkland and Jim Reardon were crowded in a small room with folding tables, right off of reception. I believe they were both directing for the first time. Although I was already hired to work in-house, I had to give two weeks to my current, satanic employer, so I was assigned work as a freelancer. It was to board an act of Itchy & Scratchy & Marge by its director, Jim Reardon. Little did I know what I was getting into.

I never had to draw so much in my life! My drawing hand (left) was killing me in those early months. I had to develop a callous on the middle finger. They gave me the “radio-play;” an audio cassette of the recorded dialog to draw to and tons of model sheets.

I remember being overwhelmed by the volume. And you had to draw in these tiny boxes of the formatted storyboard page. I didn’t have that kind of discipline (I never did: I eventually developed a style of drawing on blank pages, then fielding and formatting them onto a page. Sometimes I scaled my drawings down on the xerox machine. I also drew on post-its (the greatest invention in animation after cels) and taped them onto the formatted sheet.

As this was freelance, I actually only met with Jim twice: Once for the hand-out and then again to show him my roughs. I vaguely remember him asking for changes that I thought were off-show (I’d seen all extant episodes multiple times on TV by then). Plus this was my first time and really had no expectations of what the process was.

But--he was the director--I addressed his notes and turned in the storyboard to the receptionist without further feedback. This almost became my undoing. In future, I would know the director should go over the storyboard and decide if it was ready, needed further revision or even just check the “bookkeeping”; the placement of dialog, notes and scene and page numbering before releasing it to the producers (all the Executives at Gracie Films across town). However--for whatever reason--this didn’t happen. It went directly from reception to Gracie. And evidently the executives didn’t react well. I was ignorant of all of this for years; until Mark Kirkland told me what happened...

The Executives were displeased with the storyboard and demanded to know what happened. Someone blamed it on the new guy (me!). So it was decided I had to be fired (before I even started my first day on staff)!

Did I get thrown under the bus? I can’t say. I wasn’t there. I am only relating events second hand.

Anyway, Mark Kirkland, who shared the room with Jim Reardon and was present during my meetings came to my rescue (again, completely unbeknownst to me). He vouched for my character and said I was worthy of rescue and rather than firing me, I could work with him.

So I have Mark to thank for my career. If I was fired, it would have been crushing and I think it’s safe to say I would never have become the artist I’ve become in the thirty plus years of my career.

What was the pressure like working on the show and at the studios during that time?

Because of my lack of experience, I found it difficult judging deadlines and the necessary labor (and just pencil mileage) to succeed. Plus I was traumatised by my previous job; I was conditioned to fear punishment and humiliation at anytime for something I did or didn’t do.

The climate at Klasky/Csupo couldn’t be more starkly different; so egalitarian! Everyone was socialising and goofing around. Gabor Csupo couldn’t be a more laid-back boss! Long lunches with side-trips for comic books and toys! Nerf guns in the hall. I shared a tiny room with two other board artists, Peter Avanzino and Steve Moore. They would both have to vacate the room for me to reach my desk in the far corner. We bantered and laughed more than worked. Celebrities would drop by (Most memorable was meeting Frank Zappa). There were events always going on; bowling, screenings and parties. And yet, a ton of thought and drawing was necessary; especially for me. I worried I couldn’t work as fast as other artists. I often had to work nights and weekends to meet my deadlines. However, there always were other artists doing the same thing; they may have been more experienced than me, but they were young and not so disciplined; so I was never alone. Plus, you never knew how off the mark your roughs could be and after a meeting with the director and Brad Bird, you might suddenly be looking at a ton of revision work. I also remember that Brad was busy weekdays and meetings could sometimes only be done on Saturdays. I simply had a lot to learn and time to put in to build my proficiency. And Brad Bird was very important influence in those days: I could be nervous and exhausted preparing for a meeting with him, but he’d so infect you with his enthusiasm and creative vision that you’d end up re-doing the whole thing but be excited about doing it. He emphasized the cinematic aspects and empowered us to be bold and push the limits of traditional animation staging.

You worked on some of the show’s early classics, could you tell from your position how the episodes would come out?

My next episode for Jim Reardon was “When Flanders Failed”. Because of the kerfuffle of the first episode I did for him, I was anxious to be as professional and impressive as possible. I thought the act I did showed improvement. However, the episode seemed to languish at some point (after animation?) and word got around that it was a bust and wouldn’t reach air. My memory is hazy about this, but I was bummed at the time; thinking my working relationship with Jim was snake-bit.

A season later, it eventually did air. I’m not giving a very good account of this, sorry.

“Flaming Moe’s” was an episode I was excited about. I remember Brad Bird suggesting some very exciting staging that turned my head around. Especially the part where Homer ends up--“Phantom of the Opera-ish”--in the rafters. I think that was a turning point for me; I was going to be a Brad disciple and determined to push the staging from then on.

“Stark Raving Dad”, is memorable to me, but not for a good reason. It was one of the last episodes I worked on; only doing an act. I remember being scandalized that Michael Jackson was the subject of the episode. Being a Simpsons purist, I believed that the show existed in a parallel universe and celebrities were parodied for laughs; it was too hip to be a shill for celebrity. There was no Arnold Swarzenegger, there was McBain. There was no Hal Fishman (our local channel 5 anchor), there was Kent Brockman. Dr. Hibbert was a parody of Bill Cosby. Mayor Quimby was a parody of Ted Kennedy. Even Nick Riviera was supposed to be Gabor Csupo! Having Michael Jackson exist in this universe and embodied in a sympathetic character (rather than a target of ridicule) was seriously “jumping the shark” in my opinion. I believed the show had done the unthinkable and it would prove fatal to the series.

Of course I was wrong. The Simpsons goes on like a perpetual motion machine. But I couldn’t abide watching this wise and subversive show trample over its principles to star-fuck. Now of course, which celebrity HASN’T been on the Simpsons. As you may well know, “Stark Raving Dad” has been pulled from the series since the premiere of the HBO documentary “Leaving Neverland”, giving some credence to my long ago objection: sometimes it bites you on the ass.

“Black Widower” was my swan song. I remember meeting Kelsey Grammer at the table read and being mesmerized by his voice. He sounded just like Orson Welles. The act I boarded included Bob and Selma’s honeymoon. I wanted to give the staging a Hitchcockian influence with deep-focus, Z-axis compositions (like looking out of the fireplace, across the gas burner to Selma and Bob) and my first-ever use of DX (double exposed) shadows to provide menace. I thought that was my best work of the series.

One of my favourite early episodes is ‘Homer at the Bat’ which you storyboarded. What are your recollections on working on it? Did you get any specific notes when it came to the players?

“Homer” was my third “at bat” (pardon the pun) with Jim. He’s a baseball fan as I am, but he also PLAYED Chicago-Style Softball (baseball with a huge, soft ball). I’m a baseball fan too, but I felt I’d be exposed a dilettante due to my terminal lack of athleticism. I was assigned all three acts of the show as well! I really had to be on my game (again, pardon) and not miss any of the references. I reluctantly took him up on his offer playing in one of the Chicago-Style games one Saturday in Burbank. It was a sacrifice as I had to work weekends to keep up with the workload of this episode. I went with a fellow board artist, who’ll remain unnamed (to remain friends).

It went terribly. At bat, I whiffed three pitches in a row, and Jim kept pitching more and more out of pity. I missed them all. He finally had to tell me to just give the bat to the next guy. In the outfield, I stunk just as badly. The piece-de-resistance was when my fellow board artist was at bat and swung hard on a pitch. He missed the ball AND dislocated his knee. I ran to him as he plopped down in agony onto home plate with his knee, shin and foot pointed in the wrong direction. “If my leg stays like this much longer, I think I’m gonna start crying,” he said through the pain. After a terribly long moment, his shin and foot rotated snapped back into place. We hobbled off the field as Jim and his pals resumed the game. Could things have gone any worse? I was certain that Jim had no faith in me by that time. If so, he never said it. He was a laconic guy.

I worked on it a hundred years ago so I don’t feel the pride I objectively should. The episode went against The Cosby Show and beat it in the ratings! There’s even an exhibit in The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, that I wasn’t aware of until I went there. No artist other than Matt is mentioned. It’s all about the writers and the players who voiced the show.

I still have the storyboards of Jose Canseco in the bathtub with Ms. Krabappel that Jose objected to and we had to cut. I’ll post them someday.

How do you reflect on your time working on the show? Do you ever watch those seasons and episodes back?

See below for details; but no. I haven’t watched the episodes I worked on or those seasons for decades. I haven’t watched any episodes after the 3rd season at all. I did see the movie.

The relationship between Klasky-Csupo and Gracie Films finished at the end of the third season, when Gracie decided to move production to Film Roman, what was your view of that situation?

With the handwriting on the wall that Fox might pull The Simpsons from Klasky-Csupo, the in-house producer Sherry Gunther countered by getting all us artists to sign a document tying us exclusively to Klasky-Csupo in an effort to block Fox access to the crew. That gambit didn’t dissuade Fox. They pulled the show anyway and took it to Film Roman. At the time, I wanted desperately to follow the show, but naively thought I couldn’t because I was bound by Sherry’s contract. Virtually everyone left Klasky-Csupo for Film Roman anyways; contract be damned.

The studio became a ghost town. I stayed, distressed that I had to work on Rugrats. However, I eventually concluded that being torn away from The Simpsons was the best thing for my creative growth. Wherein The Simpsons was written so well, closely supervised and finding its stride, The Rugrats scripts were mediocre and the gags not funny. Rugrats was a vacuum to fill and I was empowered to add gags and exercise Gabor’s mandate to really push the staging into warped and low-angled baby POVs that defined the series. It lacked the regimentation of The Simpsons and I exposed to all the other processes in making cartoons. On the Chanukah special I directed, I timed the animation, I even helped direct the voice talent and supervise animatic and final edit.

The Simpsons, like many prime-time animated shows, are dominated by writer/producers who closely control the creative aspects and the artists are more or less staying in their lanes.

After the Simpsons you were assigned to work on ‘Duckman’ where you directed eight episodes, what was the step up to direction like?

I didn’t go directly to Duckman. There was a period of boarding on Rugrats and assistant directing on two Edith-Ann specials for ABC. It was a sad time, something like being in purgatory, but one which I believe was necessary in retrospect.

Speaking of being in purgatory, here’s an anecdote. Klasky-Csupo was a bunch of empty rooms after the Simpsons left. I was working on Edith Ann one day and Gabor was walking a tour of potential clients through. I showed them what I was doing and then Gabor directed them to the next room; opening a door to usher them in, various large and small auto parts suddenly tumbled noisily out onto the floor. A car bumper, pieces of trim, a fender and hub-caps.

You may ask why auto parts were in there? I’ll tell you: When Rich Moore worked there, his office overlooked the corner of Highland and Fountain avenues. Over time, he and his crew witnessed a lot of auto collisions on that corner. They would go and retrieve the parts left behind and hang them on the wall. Rich obviously left without taking his collection and somebody decided to hide them all in this room. Suffice to say, it didn’t look professional and I felt terrible for Gabor at that moment.

When I did become director, there was many moments of panic. I was used to storyboarding to my personal standard and quality that defined my aesthetic. Paradoxically, being a director meant losing close control. I had to depend on clearly communicating to the storyboard artists, quickly learning you can only tell artists so much before they “top-off” and forget what you said. No one took notes! It was all by memory! I always took notes as a board artist. A good board artist makes a director look good. There are far more mediocre storyboard artists than good ones; mainly because the good ones are promoted to directors (I feel the quality has improved over time). And I had to deal with freelancers for the first time. They are the guys that fill-in when there’s not enough staff artists. These people were usually moonlighting for extra money and end up storyboarding your show in the style of the show they were working on during the day. There just wasn’t enough time in the schedule to fix everything without working crazy hours. The Simpsons had layout. So storyboards didn’t have to be so precise and if something wasn’t staged right or acting out in storyboard, you could work with a layout artist in shorthand to correct it. Virtually my entire career has been absent layouts. They are very rare for TV nowadays. This makes the storyboard all the more important. The bar must be high; we call them “layout storyboards”; they need to be closer to model and the acting must be spot on.

Animation timing was also something I had to get control of; At first, Duckman didn’t have a supervising timing director, who could maintain the quality and the timing aesthetics particular to the show. It was up to the director to check timing. I had almost no experience and it was a new show. No one person had the answers. I could review the timer’s work (so often a dreaded freelancer) and I could see it wasn’t at all right and I’d wholesale erase it, but then I panicked that I might have done more damage than good; suddenly in over my head. It took time, but I got it.

I believe that the director who masters his x-sheets is true master of his show. I could add quality and personal aesthetics in a new dimension.

Does you background as a storyboard artist influence the way in which you direct?

Absolutely. In animation history, there were directors who didn’t storyboard or even draw. There were a few of these “dinosaurs” on Rugrats. They sat and read the paper when we boarded their shows. But because of the overseas process of animation and the loss of layouts here at home, if you are going to direct at all, you have to be comfortable drawing a detailed, informed layout storyboard. It is literally the blueprint of your show.

That said, I had to mature as a director who storyboarded. It was insane to try and board all my episodes personally, though directors will put some work aside for themselves, especially if its a sequence that would be too hard to delegate to another artist. If a sequence involves a new character, location or prop integral to the story, it may not be designed yet, so I’ll take it on and “feel it out;” designing as I board.

I had to learn how to be a good delegator and a clear communicator. I pitch sequences to the board artist before they begin and give them roughs of designs, poses or staging I think is important for the sequence. From my boarding experience, I don’t like directors who don’t tell you what they want until after you’ve drawn the storyboard. That wastes time and effort. And morale. I want the artists to know my take and hopefully that will inform the storyboard they do. I also know from my board experience that you should balance criticism with praise. Communicate what you like about how they do this and that before you go through critiquing the parts that aren’t working. Ultimately, you want to help the board artists be successful in storyboarding it their way, not my way. If it works, don’t change it just because it isn’t the way you’d do it. Lean into and support what they’ve done.

‘Duckman’ had a cavalcade of guest stars throughout the shows run, did you ever get to meet any of them, and if so, do you have a favourite encounter?

I was always of two minds regarding using live-action stars for animation. Yeah, it’s fun to meet them and some like Jason Alexander can knock-it-out-of-the-park, but sometimes this kind of “stunt casting” backfires. In my first episode, we used Crispin Glover in a stunt role as a crazed maniac with only one line. He showed up brandishing an eight inch hunting knife acting like a REAL maniac. Maybe it was method acting, but we were scared of him and got him in and out as fast as we could. His delivery didn’t work for the line and it spoiled the joke in my opinion, but it remained in the episode. If we used one of the legion of professional voice actors available, we could have worked with them for the perfect “voice” and delivery and nailed it.

We also used Teri Garr for an episode (not one I was directing) and I attended because I was a huge fan of hers. I got to see her behind the mike as she looked over her pages and said acidly, “This isn’t exactly Tolstoy, is it.” That is the opposite attitude you should have when you’re hired. She was soon pitching underwear afterwards...obviously not Tolstoy either.

So I’ll say it again: using celebrities can bite you on the ass.

Performances aside, I certainly did enjoy meeting legends. Carl Reiner played a priest in Noir Gang. Mind you we recorded in a small studio that was in the back of the Rugrats building that was essentially a cavernous storage room. Ed Asner looked visibly uncomfortable when we huddled around him in there. I’ll never forget the look on Marina Sirtis’ face when she arrived to record an episode. Me and a couple of other guys were laying in wait in this sketchy storage area eating our lunches. She was concerned: “is this the right place?” I felt like a lech and stopped going to records that I didn’t have to be at.

Overall, if the celebrity you’ve cast for a voice roll has theater experience, you are more likely to get a good vocal performance. Especially musical theater experience. They are more aware of their voice and have the tools. This goes for Jason and others like Tim Curry and Bebe Neuwirth; all great voice talent to have behind the mic.

You worked on the second run of Futurama, had you been a fan of the original seasons?

No. I didn’t watch the show before. I had to catch up and learn the “canon” when I was hired.

How did you get involved in working on Futurama?

The animating studio, Rough Draft, was something of a clique. They didn’t just hire “anybody” and unlike most studios, they maintain a staff of lifers who usually have the choice positions. I knew Peter Avanzino from our Simpsons days doing storyboards together, so he vouched for me. I was hired to direct on the 2nd season of Drawn Together. So they had a taste of what they could expect from me. I was no longer an unknown quantity when Futurama came around.

One of the eight episodes you directed was, ‘The Mutants are Revolting’, the shows hundredth episode. How special was it to work on such a landmark episode?

It had the most visibility of my episodes, at least internally. They made T-shirts and some publicity art and even the script had a nicer cover. But it was the episode with the most headaches. The scope of the story was huge with multiple set pieces. The opening newsreel, movie in a movie of the Land-Titanic, the asteroid delivery, the party at Planet Express, the riot in the sewers and the flood and “parting of the red sea” climax all required a ton of designs and characters; plus more hand-drawn and CG effects. That’s a lot to manage and marshall for a TV show. Most episodes don’t require the director to do this kind of heavy lifting. I find that when a show demands this much visually, the story ends up being more superficial, gag driven and episodic feeling. Such is the case for this episode. It was visually pumped up because it was representing the 100th episode; meaning I was saddled with managing lots of logistics rather than the usual character-based comedy and emotion of say, Tip of The Zoidberg, which is a relationship story that--as a director--I feel I give more time to flourish and shine with.

‘The Mutants are Revolting’ features some fantastic animation, most notably a brief sequence of Bender standing perfectly still as the Planet Express ship moves around him. Can you explain the challenges of a sequence like that?

That’s a good, insightful question. A shot like this shows off the resources Rough Draft has that aren’t available at just any other studio doing TV animation. The interior of the Planet Express Ship was built and animated in CG. At it’s gimbal point was a CG version of a stationary Bender; locked to field, but who’s feet move with the CG ship. Once the CG elements were approved, they were printed out as wire frame drawings printed onto pegged paper. My Assistant Director drew key poses of the characters on a separate layer in register with the CG print outs, old school on a light box animation disc. This all was sent to our overseas studio Rough Draft Korea for inbetweening and color of the characters only. That came back as an alpha-channeled digital file and layered over the CG animation in our digital compositing department.

Scott Vanzo runs the department and directs all the CG animation effects. I can’t remember who exactly built the interior of the PE ship and animated it, so I’ll rely on IMDb: Don Kim and Jason Plapp. But all the guys in the digital department do tremendous work and allowed us to fine tune a lot of animation (that doesn’t have CG in it); giving us the ability that raises the quality and takes the curse off of overseas animation limitations.

‘The Tip of the Zoidberg’ was nominated for a Primetime Emmy, how proud were you of that achievement and the episode itself?

The episode was one of my favorites; it was character focused and elaborating on canon so a director couldn’t ask for more. As for the Emmy nomination, it’s one of those show business awards that I realized early I can’t get emotionally vested in. The Futurama guys have a formula for figuring out which episode will be submitted. I think it has something to do with each writer getting a shot at the statue. And then from then on it’s just politics.

You’ve also done work on ‘Disenchantment’, giving you the distinction of having worked on all three of Matt Groening’s shows. What’s your relationship like with him?

I can’t help but laugh at this question. I’ve run into him twice out in public over the years and he didn’t recognize me. Once at the Moscow Cat Circus! But that humbling fact aside, he’s a genuinely nice, funny person devoid of pretence and he’s said some very complementary things about my work. However, it’s all business. Like virtually all primetime shows, he’s with the writers at their separate production office. Animation production takes place in a different geographical location. My face time is limited to usually 2-3 meeting points in a show’s schedule. Anything in between are fielded via emails routed through coordinators and assistants.

As well as short form animation you’ve been involved with several feature length productions, including ‘The Rugrats Movie’ and ‘Despicable Me’, what are the key differences between long from and short form animated projects?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a purely feature production experience. The Rugrats Movie(s) were spin-offs from TV series so some processes were grandfathered in from TV production. Despicable Me was truly off-the-wall in that the storyboard artists were working remotely from literally all over the world. No one met each other. I met with Chris Renaud once. I was not allowed to see the entire script, only pages here and there. It was called “Evil Me” at the time. I was truly working in the dark and ultimately, they didn’t use anything I drew. Which to me seemed par-for-the-course: this was one harebrained, inefficient, right-hand-doesn’t-know-what-the-left-hand-is-doing way to make a show. Again, I predicted it would fail. Again, I was wrong.

At the time I was working on Despicable Me, Gru looked like Snape from Harry Potter and there were no minions yet, just an “Igor” kind of 2nd banana that was a shorter version of the final Gru design.

So my takeaway from those experiences is that I prefer TV production. You don’t have the luxury of a feature schedule, but there is less time for executives to get replaced, sundry monkey-business and creatives pulling the rug out from under you. However, TV is catching up in those regards. See below.

Do you have a scene or episode you’re particularly proud of working on?

I feel fulfilled and proud of directing and being supervising producer on Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie. I was empowered to work in every aspect of the process and benefit from my experience to make it the smoothest running ship and happiest crew ever. Only at the very end did the executives get into overdrive meddling. But it ran well and looked good. It may not be as funny as my prime time stuff, but I think we elevated the material across the board; writing, design, animation quality. And it was a project put in mothballs 15 years before being resurrected. So it completes me in a way.

Ultimately, I believe work is about relationships and quality of life. The shows where you were empowered and respected and not overworked due to inefficiency are the shows I’m proud to work on. As Jim Duffy would always say, “It’s only a cartoon.”

Often sequences are cut or revised before broadcast. Do you have any favourites that didn’t make it in?

If I had, I’ve forgotten them.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry over your time and what do you think the next big change will be?

The trend seems to be as I get better and more efficient at my job, creators and writers (especially in streaming prime-time) are becoming more entitled, indecisive, mecurial and demanding. As processes have evolved in digital technology, we’ve opened the door for those in power indulging in more rewrites, revisions, reviews, etc. Despite the technical advancements, animation remains expensive and time intensive and good artists (especially in TV) have to work intelligently and diligently on tight schedules to produce funny, inspired, detail-oriented work. Rewrites and revisions burn out artists and make us feel like office machines and though our overlords pay for the last minute re-dos, they are often throwing out higher quality work for patchwork revisions that lower the overall quality of a show.

Who inspired you as a young animator and who do you look to now?

Ironically, I never saw myself becoming an animator. I did do some stop-motion on Super 8 as a kid. But that was because I didn’t have access to peers to act and help. What inspired me were live action directors with strong, individual styles: Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Greenaway and Terry Gilliam. I think of these guys in essence as “live-action-animation directors”. The stylization in their sequence planning, shot selection and composition as well as how production design integrates in their storytelling reminds me of how background design and art direction naturally occur in animation production.

I’m sure there are new visionaries out there, but I’ve become so disenchanted with modern cinema, I rarely see new movies anymore. I find streaming TV much more interesting. Current movies strike me as self-consciously mannered and hyperactive. I find it endlessly fascinating looking back into cinema history before movies had to begin with three or four production company logos whooshing noisily about.

What advice would you give to people looking to break into the animation industry?

I’ve seen an improvement in the college educated animation students over the years. They seem to be of a higher intellectual standard than before. They aren’t as thrown by the rigors of schedule and they ALL can draw circles around me.

Be original in your own work, but also be a craftsman (as opposed to purely an artist) who can take criticism neutrally and have the tools to fit in the grand scheme of a show that might challenge your personal aesthetics.

Denis Sanders, a directing teacher I had in college said the director’s job is to be “an expert at all things”. In animation, that translates into intellegently knowing what to draw. If a character is looking under the hood of a car, know what an internal combustion engine looks like and what reasonable pieces you can have your character toss out of said engine. The distributor, the carburettor. Find and use reference! Go that extra step and inform your work with the texture of reality.

Don’t regurgitate old tropes. A trite example of what I’m talking about: If a character is peeking at another, avoid the obvious keyhole in the door trope. Keyholes aren’t in doors anymore. It’s been a cliche from the beginning of cinema. Rather, crack the door open, slide your cellphone under the door, look through a window or punch a hole in the door and look in. Like I said, this is a trite example, but making non-obvious choices rather than knee-jerk non-choices makes cartoons fresh and funnier.

What animated shows do you currently watch and what’s your opinion on the current state of animation?

It’s a terrible admission, but I’m not watching anything in animation. There’s a lot of animation that seems to be just writer-driven, animated live-action sit-coms. There isn’t a reason for them to be animated. Those are the kind of jobs I get offered a lot. It seems like a more trouble than it’s worth.

Who are some young animators you think we should be looking out for?

Gosh, I don’t know.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m productively unemployed at the moment.

Where can people follow you on social media?

I only do tumblr: mashymilkiesinc.tumblr.com

#The Simpsons #Futurama #Eye on Springfield #Raymie Muzquiz #Not tall or wide

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hazelenergy · 4 years

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How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use.

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research.

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards.

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn.

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing. Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later.

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources!

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world.

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece.

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines.

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get.

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things:

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline.

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart.

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through.

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully.

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens.

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already, SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome.

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough.

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast.

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day.

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing!

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post!

#digital art #my art #okay to reblog #how to #long post

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i-dont-want-your-hysteria · 3 years

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a message.

This whole post is full of things I’ve wanted to say for a very long time. So yes, this is going to be very long.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say I’m sorry to the innocent people who had nothing to do with this. I’ve never ever been involved with online/fandom drama before, I hate being in this position so fucking much with all my heart and soul, and I never thought in my whole life that I’d be in this position, either.

Secondly, this is about the DEF LEPPARD FANDOM ON TUMBLR. If you’re not part of this fandom, kindly fuck off :^) This is not about you.

This post explains why I feel this way. And to those innocent people who aren’t involved with this, I’m sincerely sorry if any of this has changed your opinions of me.

I’m in a mood and a half, so I’ll do my best to effectively tell everything from my perspective. Read if you want, but this is just what I’m thinking.

I’ve been running this blog for almost three years now. When I first joined this fandom on tumblr at the beginning of 2018, there wasn’t really a ‘fandom’ per se; all the main blogs were dead, no one ever really posted, and there wasn’t much content. I decided to start a DL blog of my own to vent my love into it and not spam my main account.

Within a month, I could quickly see that some sort of renaissance was happening in this fandom; more blogs were popping up, more people were posting, and more people were just participating in general. There were memes now, there were conversations now- it was great! There was a real community; it was all about sharing information, spewing our love, getting creative, and interacting!

There was integrity, and there was respect for the band as well as one another.

I, as part of this community, wanted to do everything in my physical power to contribute in any way I could. I was insanely active and hyper-productive and could not be stopped. I still haven’t stopped, but I certainly have slowed down significantly (due to lack of new activity from the band and increased mental health issues I won’t get into). I don’t want to be self-centered and say that I was “running” this branch of the fandom for the past 2.7 years, but I was certainly a big player in it, and I feel everyone agreed (and some still agree) with that as well.

There were some times where disagreements happened. There were times where many of us knew that someone else was crossing a line in a post. We knew what qualified as “not okay” in terms of being perverted and such. We’d solve this by not blaming, not hounding, not sending anon hate, not calling out, but by presenting facts, talking maturely, and trying to right the wrongs as maturely as we could.

Yes, it was possible. Was.

I don’t think you guys realize just how much content I’ve contributed to this fandom. I have spent basically every single day of the past 3-ish years trying to spread information/content/photos/videos/links/etc. to everyone who follows me (and everyone who doesn’t). This fandom was (and I cannot stress this enough), literally my entire life for the past 3 odd years, and I really wanted to spend the rest of my life contributing to it the way I’ve been.

I don't think anyone on here realizes everything that I have done for this community. Because of me:

this fandom has access to Animal Instinct for free

this fandom has access to the rare picture disc interview

this fandom has numerous scans of photos that may have not ended up online otherwise (I also paid $70 to have access to some of these. You're welcome.)

we have Fabulist Icons content

we have a decent amount of fanfiction that doesn't only focus on the boys banging each other/sex in general (seriously, this simply didn’t exist on here before I started posting my shit)

we have a little more fan art

we have content from Phil's and Ross's books

we have hundreds (yes, literally, HUNDREDS) of edits/moodboards/memes/etc. that I made myself

we have gifsets of things that no one else would have made

we have achieved justice a lot of the time when content was stolen because I have defended everyone without question/rallied up armies the second I heard it happened

some of you have gotten updates on news/facts/history/details/etc. that you’ve never even heard of

probably a shit ton more things, but that’s all I can think of for now. You get the point.

But that’s only half the story. This band and fandom has given me so much to cherish over the past few years.

Because of this fandom and the people (that were once) in it, I have:

met Rick in person

met, quite honestly, my two best friends ever, @ballistic-lipstick-dream-machine (my true Terror Twin) and @paper-sxn (adopted little sister/cousin)

became in contact with Phil's guitar tech from the mid-80s (Mike)

gained creative ambition to play guitar, create art, write stories, make edits/gifs, travel, and basically just better myself

began a record collection that is now in the hundreds and gained a lot of knowledge from it

discovered a whole new genre of music

found a community/culture where, for the very very first time in my life, I felt like I BELONGED.

fallen in love with something and someone for the first time

felt like I actually mattered to people, like I was actually important (because people would always come to me for information or help if they needed it)

basically impacted every corner of my life

just about a million other things, too, but I will be here all night if I try to list them all.

To put it delicately: Def Leppard and this fandom on tumblr absolutely changed my life, and was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

I have spread so much information around, you newer people wouldn't imagine. I have gathered and seen so much information, you wouldn't believe how much I know and how much I've learned. I have bounced back and forth between formats time after time again that I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp. I have edited so many things on non-professional programs that I am an MS paint expert. I have been here so long, that I’ve seen 98% of the people in this branch of the fandom rotate in and out at least two or three times.

That being said, all of the toxic people in this fandom will most likely be gone within the next 6 months.

Def Leppard has taught me so much, but a big thing was love and loyalty. It's clear that the majority of people in this fandom (read my lips- I am N O T saying anyone’s names. I mean that.) do not know the meanings of either of these words. I've been practically running this fandom on Tumblr for nearly three years now, you’ve seen all that I’ve done for you, and what have I gotten in return?

Slander, cyberbullying, disrespect, consistently stolen content, etc. That’s what I’ve gotten. I’ve never attacked anyone on here, and that is still something I won’t do.

Yes, I am against slash fic, and I can’t believe that THAT’S the only reason why I’m being torn down like this. Something so dumb and immature as that has torn my beloved community in half. I have never attacked ANYONE for writing slash fic, yet I’ve been getting attacked since August (it is November now) for simply believing it is wrong to openly admit you want the boys to fuck each other.

(I’d also like to point out that someone from the KISS fandom ((god knows why)) had the balls to call me “homophobic” for hating slashfic. I can’t even begin to explain how much I laughed at that.)

I just wanna say that these are REAL people you’re writing about, you know. Don’t you think THEY would be against it? I know I cannot stop anyone from writing slash (I’ve said that before, but no one seems to remember it). I don’t think any of you realize that there is a certain line you shouldn’t cross when it comes to the internet, and being perverted in such an explicit and disrespectful way is one of them. We always had integrity in this fandom, and slash was never part of something we stood for. We knew when to stop, and we kept the slash on rockfic.com (where it belongs imo. That’s like their element).

I was very confused when more slash fics started appearing on tumblr this year. Now, it seems like that’s all there is, and I’m disgusted.

Whenever something close to that happened in 2018, everyone would be totally against it, and we’d talk it out and explain. While we all had our fair share of horny (and maybe then some) in this fandom, but we always knew where to draw the line. That was the line. That line doesn’t exist anymore, apparently, and nobody knows how to be mature and respectful to the band, to each other, and just for fuck’s sake. Now, I’m being slammed that being perverted for them fucking their best friends is “just fandom, bitch” and “the norm” and that it’s done “out of respect”, which I will never understand. You can’t use “slash” and “respectful” in the same sentence, and you can’t change my mind, but I know I can’t change yours, either.

Slash is not, nor will it ever be, respectful. This fandom has become toxic.

Fanfiction is an outlet for creativity to be used for fun, not to be used as an excuse to project your sexually perverted sexuality headcannons/fetishes onto innocent, REAL, LIVE people. If all you write/read is them having sex with each other, then it really makes you wonder if it’s about “respect” anymore, doesn’t it?

In my opinion it’s fucked up that it’s “normal” and “just part of fandom” to create sexualities for- again- REAL, LIVE PEOPLE, and it’s everyone’s first instinct to argue that it’s fine, apparently? If you “respect” your idols so much like you claim you do, then why don’t you maybe respect their actual orientations instead of creating masturbation material for random 12 year olds and boomers, perhaps?

I don’t know what I did that was so fucking wrong in your eyes, as I’ve always tried to keep integrity in this area of tumblr.

I'm very deeply hurt, more than I've ever been by this. It physically hurts me to admit that this fandom has become as toxic as it currently is. I don’t feel welcome here anymore at all, despite practically running things on here for so long.

I don’t know how I could ever live without this fandom, but now it looks like I’m going to have to try, or at least try and rebuild it on my own (again). I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop posting about Def Leppard, and after all, I only started posting about them for myself to begin with.

We were supposed to be the good fandom, the happy fandom, the fandom with no drama. I am ashamed to be associated with you now. I tried to stop it as best as I could, and hoped people would back me up, but I’ve received nothing but hate for simply trying to preserve some dignity.

You guys have been immature to say the least, and I find it very hard to believe that some of you are legal adults (but let’s be honest; most of you toxic people are probably too young to even be behind a computer, anyway).

I’ve had to block some people that I really didn’t want to, but the deed is done. Keep your slash to yourself, tag it, do a read more, post it somewhere else, even- that’s how you co-exist. Just don’t come after me because I think it’s wrong. I never came after anyone specifically like that.

This isn’t goodbye, but I certainly am leaving for a while. I hope I got my point, my history, and my perspective across.

And I hope you’re fucking happy, because you’ve destroyed something I loved.

-Rachel

#also to helena_s_renn on rockfic: suck my dick bitch :3 #thank you to those who have messaged me and been kind #time to watch my follower count dwindle at the speed of sound #goodbye

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leeblissy · 3 years

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for all its faults (of which there were. so fucking many holy shit), one of the few things that actually went well in 2020 was me finally getting out of my comfort zone and making a habit of drawing backgrounds and stuff

it was really slow going at first: i found myself in a pretty big slump because from the literal beginning of 2018 to practically the end of 2019 i was trying to do a drawing every day? it really improved my work in 2018, but by maybe like. september 2019 i was just completely burnt out and yeah i probably gave myself kind of an unhealthy relationship with my workflow and my natural art cycle ksjdkdjdk

so in 2020 i never forced myself to draw when i didn’t feel like it, which yeah meant that there occasionally periods of time where i didn’t draw for a whole month, which was ok 💕 i found that maybe i needed the consistency in 2018, but it wasn’t gonna last going forward. being patient and waiting for genuine inspiration to strike was exactly what i needed in 2020, especially with all the other fuck shit going on on the planet 💀

all 2019 i was telling myself over and over “okay one of these days i’m gonna work on drawing backgrounds like rooms and stuff” and i didn’t. literally not once the entire year. forcing art out of yourself when you’re burning up is NOT what helps you put the fire out. and in may 2020 i actually genuinely WANTED to give it a try, and it was way easier than i expected!! that first may piece started a trend with me and now i have a TON of completed pieces with some really nice backgrounds under my belt and i’m sooo happy with them all 🤧

also in september i picked up yugioh again and then this blog and my brain rot happened 💀 it was so nice to have yugioh to entertain and inspire me through all this, especially bonding with my siblings over it was really important to me in 2020

#art summary #year in summary #yugioh #WHEN I TELL YOU THERE ARE SO MANY PIECES I COULDNT FIT IN HERE FROM SEPTEMBER ONWARD....#WORMS. WORMS IN THE BRAIN 💀#lee says shit #lees art

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crazycookiemaniac · 4 years

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Omg why are you losing so many followers youve been drawing gay shit for forever??? (Or maybe i as a gay was just interpreting it that way)

Because I literally spammed people every day for one week lmao. And also, a lot of people follow others for specific content. The moment I stop drawing that exact thing they followed me for, they unfollow me. There are also accounts that follow just to make you follow them & if you don’t, they unfollow you after a while. There’s people who followed me for haikyuu & weren’t interested in BC content, and there were people who followed me for BC content but got showered in gay art instead and that was not their cuppa tea.

But mostly, i start appearing on people’s feed the more I post. So having me post incessantly for one week made me show up on feeds that I hadn’t shown up for a good while, so there were probably people who forgot they had followed me in the first place & me posting was a reminder to unfollow.

Truthfully, follower counts are dumb. Yes, it is important for you to have a high follower count for you to get attention, but the amount of people actually following you if you don’t have a consistent art style & rarely ever post something with different vibes than your usual ones, is equal or less than 1% of your total amount of following.

My instagram tells me I have 43k. I do not have 43k people following me. I’ve had 43k that once saw my account & pressed the follow button, but their feeds are filled up with other people’s accs that interest them more than mine (as well as my own feed does not show all the content of the 200+ something people I follow, unless I scroll down till the depths of hell to find every single post on that day and then do so on the next day as well).

Essentially, 95% of your followers are there because of content. They want to see what entertains them. Most of them don’t care about the artist and don’t interact with them at all. Many of them are scared to, given the high follower count. Social media & big accounts make people forget that there are other, real, living & breathing people that are behind them all.

So, to many, I was just a random artist they found and “lol”ed at one of my comics & pressed follow without thinking about it. Most of them don’t go to my account and see all other art I’ve posted to see if they actually like what I do, or me as a person and as an artist at all.

People who don’t know this get really discouraged when they don’t earn a lot of followers, or when they lose a lot (like I did). And some people think you gotta have hundreds of thousands to be famous. I’ve seen accs going around that paid for ads, that had over 150k followers and less than 1k likes on their posts.

Truly famous, loved, growing and/or steady accounts have an amount of likes per post proportional to their follower count. For example, if someone has 150k followers, most of their posts will vary from 20k to 100k likes.

When I was growing my account because I hopped in the fandom bandwagon and stupid little me didn’t know that would only make me crash later, I had like 20~30k and some of my posts reached more than 20k likes (because people liked my stupid comics). Nowadays, I’m not part of the fandom that made me grow anymore. I’m part of a very underrated one (Black Clover), as well a I am drawing a very underrated ship (LuGna) that above all else is getting hated on. I have everything against me in this, so it’s no wonder I lost so many followers.

They didn’t wanna see gay art. They didn’t wanna see Black Clover. They didn’t even know what the fuck was going on. Not everyone paid attention or kept up with my warnings. Despite me explaining multiple times in multiple posts what the Thunder Flames project was about, a lot of people still didn’t know what I was doing that for.

The thing about being a big follower count is that, unless you’re actually loved for what you do (and to do that, once again, I need to emphasize that you need to keep a steady rhythm, a steady vibe, a steady you. Because people follow you for your first impression on them, and you gotta keep up to that first impression if you wanna keep your followers.

I’m unsteady. One look at my gallery and you’ll see how disorganized everything is. Oh, lookit, a 1 min speedpaint of a random drawing I did on an old piece of paper! And right on the left there’s a stupid random comic I did–on the right there’s this super detailed, shaded drawing I’ve done that actually looks terrible to me and I will 100% archive it later, and then there’s B&W mixed with gray shaded, flat colored and fully shaded characters of different fandoms + OCs from commissions and whatever else.

The thing is, I made my follower count based on a fandom, and now that I’m not there most of that follower count does not have me on their feed. And most of them do not want me on their feed. Now, I’m trying to build a follower count for who I am as an artist, because the few people who have actually stayed and followed me throughout the years know how inconsistent I am in terms of art style, fandoms and everything else.

A solution to this would me either keep creating/posting the same thing all over again (just in different patterns), or creating original content (which I do plan on doing at some point). But for now? Since my follower count does absolutely not reflect on how many people actually like me and/or my art, I’m going to be as chaotic as fucking ever and do whatever the fuck I want.

So yes, I do find it comical that I lost 1k followers over this and am not fazed in the very least, especially because I literally foreshadowed losing 1k and hit the fucking jackpot.

The only reason I’m talking about this at all is because 1- it’s impossible not to notice my follower count decreasing, especially because every new 1k I thank people publicly through stories; 2- some people were actually worried I was upset over it and I have to 3- show that I am not, while simultaneously trying to show people that just because you’re losing followers doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you want to create content to please people. It doesn’t mean you should be upset, and it doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is bad or wrong.

It means you’re fucking renewing your followers & you’ll now grow for what you’re trying to grow for, bitch. That’s what it’s all about.

Obviously, people do take a great risk doing this. I am taking a great risk doing this. I could’ve lost 5k, I could’ve lost 10k. But I only lost 1k! And that’s because I believe in the project I worked on; I knew there were people out there who enjoyed what I was doing and it’s on them that I was focused on. On the people who supported me AND my art, not just that one single funny comic post I did 3 years ago.

This answer is 100% a lot longer than what you could’ve possibly expected for and I am typing this while being awake for more than 24h so I’m sure that I’ve repeated myself a lot and that there are a lotta typos or w/e and I apologize for that!! But I’m too lazy to go back to read everything over & turn this into a neat post & I’m pretty sure I could answer your question in the first paragraph.

Oh and also. Yes. Yes I have been drawing gay shit ever since I’ve become an artist because I’m so fucking pissed at the lack of canon gay content in a way that it’s depicted as a normal fucking romantic couple instead of having eeeeeeeeveryone point their finger to the gay couple and scream “HEY THAT’S GAY!!! THIS CAN’T BE PART OF THIS VERY HETEROSEXUAL SHOW WHERE EVERYONE IS OBVIOUSLY HETEROSEXUAL EVEN THOUGH NONE OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE EVER SAID THAT EXPLICITLY BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE CREATORS ARE EITHER HETEROSEXUAL OR TOO AFRAID TO LOSE AUDIENCE IF THEY TREAT GAY PEOPLE AS NORMAL PEOPLE!??!! WHAT SORT OF ABSURD NONSENSE IS THAT??!! GAY PEOPLE AREN’T NORMAL!! THEY’RE GAY AND THEY SHOULD HAVE A GAY SHOW JUST FOR THEM IF THEY WANNA GET SCREENTIME” and yadda yadda yadda.

I’m tired of this bullshit. Ever since I was an artist I’ve been rooting for gay ships in shonen manga while knowing they would never happen just because they were gay, and now that we are in our Blessed-By-Satan, Pandemic-Chaotic, What-The-Fuck-Is-Going-On, We-Don’t-Know-If-We-Wanna-Go-Back-Or-To-The-Future-Or-Just-IDK-Fucking-Die year 2020, in which the LGBT community is thriving and being louder than ever to fight for our rights, Me, in my twenty four years of fucking age, having gone through several fucking disappointments ONLY regarding this matter, am sitting here on my ass, hopeful as all galactic, glittery shit that for some fucking reason, my new OTP formed by very underrated characters from this very underrated franchise in the southern and western communities, becomes canon because my stupid eyes can see chemistry between them even though those stupid haters’ can’t. But that’s because they’re stupid and homophobic, and they really should just shut the fuck up. I don’t wanna dream, I want to believe. Let a bitch pray in peace.

But even if I’m getting ready for disappointment, I’m gonna make this project happen and I’m gonna have a shit ton of artbooks from this Thunder Flames project inside my fucking garage if no one wants to buy them. But I am going to invest a shit ton of money in it and I am going to have these artbooks come to life. Because I am spiteful and petty and homophobes should shut the fuck up, and I wanna do what I wanna do bc as an independent artist, I’m building my future with my own two, very toned and buff by now from all the drawing I did, hands.

God fucking damn it.

Jesus christ I’m just rambling at this point, I’m so sorry. If anyone ever reads this out of context people are going to be so confused.

But that’s fine. They won’t. You know why? Cuz I got almost 11k followers here on tumblr but less than 0.5% gives a shit that I’m here, so I’m safe.

Have a nice day, drink your water and fuck homophobes. Peace

#Anonymous

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putschki1969 · 4 years

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Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2

Note: This is my English translation of Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2. Please enjoy!

『teamLab Borderless Forgetting Time Within “Art without Borders”』〜 Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2〜

Hello, this is Hikaru//. In this second column I will be doing another "report" just like I did in Vol.#1. I was super thrilled on the day of the shoot because I have always been interested in this place! This time we went to... 『MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless』 !

The nearest stations are Aomi Station on the Yurikamome Line or Tokyo Teleport Station on the Rinkai Line. In the stations you will see lots of posters guiding you to the venue. When you look at all the ads you will get even more excited!

At the venue itself visitors are asked to wear a mask as a measure against COVID-19. You also need to disinfect you hands at the entrance. If you wish you can also get disposable vinyl gloves. On the left side of the entrance there are also lots of coin lockers where you can store your luggage. You should definitely make use of that...I recommend going inside carrying as little as possible! When entering the first room your temperature is measured with a thermo camera.

After the temperature measurement there is this huge message plastered to the wall. What do they mean by "wandering"? That’s what I asked myself when I saw these words. But once you have experienced it all, the words will make sense *laughs* Well then, let’s go inside! You have three options at the beginning. Many museums have a certain route that you need to follow in order to enjoy everything properly but with "TeamLab Borderless" it’s up to you where you want to go, you can go wherever you feel like going. Being led by your feelings is the best way to enjoy art!

I really like butterflies so I am going to the "Butterfly House" first. Butterflies are flying all over the room! If you try touching the butterflies because you think they are so beautiful and cute they will crumble and fall to the floor...The butterflies born here jump out of the room and move on to join the other art in the museum. So you don’t have to feel sad about saying goodbye to the butterflies since you will meet them again soon, you only have to take a few steps to see them flying around in various places.

After chasing butterflies I went to the "Forest of Flowers and People, Lost and Reborn". There are flowers all around the ground and across the walls! Flowers will appear where people are standing and after a while they scatter again, when you stay at a single place for a longer time the flowers will bloom. It’s a very photogenic space. It's large as it is but since there are so many mirrors the space feels even wider! ♪ You can easily take a ton of selfies here *laughs*. Enjoy the various flowers! There are some smaller rooms with several little spaces where the work is displayed on monitors. Also, you can see some animals decorated with flowers moving along the walls. Please try to touch those animals and see what happens ♪

After encountering the animals I entered a space with a big waterfall. The flow of water changes when people stand or sit on it and when you stay there for a while flowers will start to bloom. On the walls where the water doesn’t flow you can see all kinds of art. What might happen when you touch the flowing kanji? Please experience how the art changes when you manage to touch it!

"Team Lab Borderless" is a permanent exhibition but depending on the season you can see lots of different art! Right now you can experience a special "seasonal exhibition", I got to see it. iI’s amazing art that feels reminiscent of Japanese paintings! Apparently this is the first time the exhibition, “Proliferating Immense Life” is open to the public in Japan. Even though it’s a seasonally limited exhibition I would like to talk a little about the art. In the “Flowers - Layered Ultrasubjective Space” you can drown within countless semi-transparent images of hydrangea from June to July. The space “Memory of Topography“ depicts a rural mountain landscape of varying elevations. The scenery instills in the viewer a feeling of eternal permanence. From June to August you can enjoy lush rice fields and crepe myrtles. With the flow of real time the scenery is continuously changing so when I was there, thunder struck and it rained down heavily onto the rice fields (※ Please note that there is no actual water in this exhibition).

In the “Forest of Resonating Lamps” you can experience the sensation of being surrounded by the soft light of lamps whose colour scheme changes as people stand nearby. This production is very much reminiscent of the hydrangea you can see from June to July. The lamps are specially arranged and they are hand-made from Murano glass (Venetian glass). If you take a close look at each individual lamp you will notice that they all look different. The seasonal art is constantly changing. Even the staff members do not know when something new will be installed. So I consider myself very lucky to have been able to experience all these seasonal exhibitions.

Now, let's return to the permanent art. When you continue onwards you will be joined by crows as you enter the “Cave Universe”. This work is to be viewed from a position close to the entrance. The work begins when crows of “Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well” enter into the Cave Universe in the middle of the aisle. If you stand at position close to the entrance the boundary between the wall and the floor disappears, the real space dissolves and the lines drawn by the trails of the crows appear to be drawn in three dimensions in the space. Eventually the body becomes immersed in the artwork world, and the border between the artwork and the viewer dissolves. I really want everyone to experience this!

The next space you will reach is "Wander through the Crystal World". This interactive installation artwork uses an accumulation of light points to create a sculptural body. The Crystal World is created when people use their phones to send elements of the natural world into it. It's beautiful and fun ♪

Then we continue towards the “Athletics Forest“ area. In the “Weightless Forest of Resonating Life” you can be three dimensionally immersed by various objects of light that move as though they’re defying gravity, they will also be changing colours... I tried putting an object above my head *laughs*. The “Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds“ space features connected boards hanging in mid-air on ropes, creating a floating three dimensional space. You can train your body by trying to navigate the space in mid-air *laughs*.

In “Graffiti Nature - High Mountains and Deep Valleys, Red List” various creatures drawn by visitors live in a large, three-dimensional space consisting of slopes with different elevations. Challenge yourself and draw one of the endangered animals! I did it, I completed my drawing! Once you hand your drawing to a staff member it will appear within the space..It almost feels like you are a parent watching over your child *laughs* You start getting attached!

Last but not least I would like to introduce the "EN TEA HOUSE Genka-Tei". This is the only food and drink art space in the museum. The first thing you will notice when you enter the room is the strong aroma of tea. There are four types of tea, tea leaves from the mountains of Hizen in Kyushu are used. There is also a set menu with rich green tea ice cream filled with umami flavor and accompanied with shirotama. You have to order first at the reception. Then you will be guided to your seat. Tatami mats are used for the tables and chairs, making it a relaxing space. Tea and ice cream are brought in, the art starts once the set is placed in front of you. Make tea and a flower blooms inside the teacup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. Smell, taste, sight... It was a space where all senses were stimulated, a truly healing experience.

There are so many great artworks in "Team Lab Borderless", I cannot possibly write about all of them. I hope you will visit and experience it all for yourself! These are the words written at the exit.

This time, I was wanderiing around the museum for about two and a half hours without a map. Even though I spent so much time there I still couldn’t go everywhere, I only saw parts of it. There is still so much left to discover. I wanna come here again! And here’s a bonus pic for you! I was so absorbed in the art that I didn’t really take too many pictures of myself... *laughs*.

I had a great and exciting time, this experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on many things! Well then, until next time! Text = Hikaru// Photography = Yuki Ohashi, Hikaru//

#kalafina #hikaru #otaku #spice #hikaru//#helical #h-el-ical//#spice series #Hikaru//の自由綴文 #Hikaru//’s Free Writing #text heavy #picture heavy

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