#the anime changed the order and added more scenes which helped but if it was even longer i'd like that.

[guideaus]

actually, now that im thinking abt vagabond, i feel vinland saga could have been better to read if the pacing wasn't so quick. not vagabond slow, lol, but yeah

#personal #bc in vinland saga even when theres a chapter where the priest talks abt love its while theyre on the way to their next point #thorfinn momentarily being treated kindly is used to show that he's still obeying askeladd and his men invade the village #of the ppl that showed him kindness. uhh... i cant really think of any chapters not advancing the plot tbh #the first vol had it out of order and those could count but theyre definitely 'start of the manga' chapters #the anime changed the order and added more scenes which helped but if it was even longer i'd like that. #i wasnt gonna say filler but i think that technically does count since it wasnt in the manga lol. give me scenes not advancing the plot!! #esp since yukimura definitely seemed to be interested in viking culture/history

[yumeka-sxf]

In addition to Yor's epiphany scene, this scene was the other one I was most looking forward to in season 2 - a scene that, in my opinion, is one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far 💖

Why is it so significant? Because there was no reason for Twilight to put on any Loid Forger acting in that moment. He wasn't conversing with nor being scrutinized by anyone. So why would he give that soft smile followed by such affectionate, comforting words as "お疲れ様/otsukaresama"? (this can be translated in many ways, but generally it's something you say to thank someone for their hard work).

The answer is because it's something he truly felt...he understood the sacrifice Yor made for Anya's happiness and genuinely appreciated it (if only he knew the sacrifice she made on the larger scale, lol). While he's a bit perturbed at first since some onlookers were snickering at him, it didn't take long for him to soften and then graciously carry his queen and princess the girls back to the ship 😭

But Twilight overall was really soft in this episode and I loved it~ From his blush upon seeing Yor to the several times he gave that same soft smile when talking with/looking at her...I think Anya was right when she called him out on the ship about missing his wife 😅

I liked how the anime conveyed his shock when noticing her bruised face...what must have been his thought at that moment? 👀

The scenes of the family activities translated better in animated form in my opinion. While they were each only a single panel in the manga, they lasted a few seconds each in the anime, plus the addition of the insert song helped the with the comfy, wholesome vibe~ Also the part where Yor inadvertently chucks Anya across the ocean is still hilarious.

Loid's dorky skip at the beginning of the episode translated very well in animated form too 😅

The ending of this chapter in the manga always felt a bit rushed to me...it quickly jumps from the aforementioned scene of them returning to the ship, to suddenly being home, reuniting with Bond and Franky, having a meal together, then Twilight meeting Sylvia, all within a few panels. Even though I wish the anime added more than just some additional scenes of the ship leaving the island, I felt it flowed much better in the anime since, just like the family activities, each scene in the ending lasted a second or two instead of being a single illustration.

But I love how this chapter/episode ends, with Yor, Anya, and Bond napping while Anya draws about her family vacation. This seems to take place the next day or maybe later the same day they got home, so makes sense they'd still be tired from the trip!

By the way, the manga has this additional scene showing that Olka and company are safe. Weird that the anime didn't stick it in at some point.

Also, the anime team didn't have to go so hard with this episode's key visual but they did...and I love it 😍 Might actually be my favorite of the key visuals so far!

I was very happy to see the "surrounded by liars" panel finally animated! This is such a funny scene and a great way to fully wrap up the cruise arc.

I also burst out laughing at Yuri's locker 🤣

Damian is surprisingly laid back in this episode. I think the reason is because Anya's antics aren't directly involving him. He tends to go total tsundere only when she's actually talking to him, lol.

The new scene of Yor getting the keychains for her coworkers was a nice addition! Guess it's canon that Yor and Anya didn't sleep for the entire trip back, lol. Glad they got to spend family time on the ship too! (though I wish we could have seen Yor's reaction waking up in Loid's bottom bunk bed, haha. He must have brought her to his room since he wouldn't know where her room is. Unless she woke up before he even put her in a bed, in which case she would have been super embarrassed knowing he was carrying her around in public 😆)

Looks like next week the anime will be changing the order of things a bit and giving us the Becky home-wrecking and Fiona chapters (the latter of which seems to have some anime original content?) The Becky chapter is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters...I'm already dying of laugher thinking about it 😂

#spy family #spy x family #sxf #spyxfamily #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger #twiyor #sxf anime #becky blackbell #yuri briar

[madrone33]

Ok, so heavy SPOILER WARNING for Pjo episode 6! And the rest of the show since I have read the book! Just, y’know, there’s your warning.

I’d also like to preface this by saying this post will be a rambling, not at all ordered, completely unscripted, kinda-rant kinda-essay of my thoughts on the episode, which means it is inherently biassed and completely composed of my thoughts, feelings, and opinions! None of this is fact, and I’m not trying to force my opinion on you. If you think differently or disagree, that’s completely fine! I would hate to live in a world full of clones of myself lol

With that out of the way, onto whatever this will turn out to be!

Ok, so I really liked the Hermes scene. That part was well written and acted. The family drama and guilt and blame is this show is really complex and everyone just needs multiple hugs tbh. Also, seeing a bit of Hermes’ powers was interesting.

I’m intrigued to know more about Percy’s flashback, while at the same time dreading it because I know it’ll be something heart wrenching and traumatic for poor Percy.

Hermes not agreeing to help them was a kinda foregone conclusion; it would be way too easy for them if he just let them into the Underworld, and we can’t make things easy for them now, can we :D

The Kronos stuff was cool to see, with Luke desperately covering his ass lmao, and Percy confiding in Annabeth. The slight change in Iris Messaging, with them not needing water and using a crystal instead was good. Both that it saved time and that it’s more believable. If your one communication tool is rainbows, of course you’d carry around a portable crystal to make ‘em.

It does make me wonder if they’re ever going to explain that technology - as in phones - makes it easier for monsters to find you. ‘Cause currently I… don’t think that’s been made clear to non-book audiences? Maybe I missed it in an earlier episode? Idk.

The scene where they released the trafficked animals was funny, and Grover completely overlooking if humans would get hurt and only thinking of the animals was a nice touch. I get why they didn’t show the animal abuse explicitly, even if I liked how in the books it was shown more clearly.

Them actually realising that the Lotus Hotel is connected to the Lotus Eaters from the Odyssey was good. I like how they’re identifying the threats faster in the show, whereas in the book they really fell for the monsters’ traps a lot. And the fact that they were on guard and were thinking that it was the food to watch out for added a different kind of danger than the books, where it was more just the readers sensing something wrong and hoping they’d not get trapped.

I like that the Lotus was actually being pumped into the air the whole time. And the fact that Percy and Annabeth being together helped them remember what they were actually there for vs Grover being alone and succumbing quicker was logical.

I didn’t like what they did with Grover so much. Him finding a fellow Satyr and trying to talk to him the way that he can’t to Percy and Annabeth was sad, but then, uh, idk he kinda just felt a bit useless? And the Satyr (who’s name I’ve completely forgotten oops) I think was supposed to be seen as funny? But he was… not. He wasn’t funny. And Grover was just very meh.

Like, this is one of those instances where I would’ve liked for them to change it from the books. In the books they all get split up become slowly addicted to the games in the Lotus Hotel and all that, and then Percy snaps out of it and he goes to wake up Annabeth and Grover, and they find Grover playing something like ‘Destroying Humanity’ and then drag him out of there. Which is basically what happens here, but it’s just-

They’ve changed so many other things for the better, turning moments from a randomness scene to a character beat. And I think they tried to do that by adding the Satyr and the ‘Finding Pan’ game, but it just. Didn’t work for me. He was just kinda there and did basically nothing and, like.

Ok ok so my main problem with this episode is the lack of tension.

First off, they were more meandering around looking for Hermes, it didn’t seem like they were that worried they might not find him. Like, they literally just wandered around and found him, without asking for any directions from strange people that might’ve given some insight into how sus this place is, or even having a quick montage cut of them jogging around peering into shady places. They just- walk around slowly and then there he is. Incredible.

Second, I know the Lotus is supposed to be like a drug, where you forget things and just focus on feeling good all the time, but I would’ve liked if Grover figured out that it was in the air, or that too much time has passed, and tries to fight it or smth?

Like, he starts to forget, and knows he’s forgetting something important, and tries to find- someone- the people he knows he came here with- not just so they can help him remember but to warn them that they were wrong, and it’s not just if you eat the food it’s everywhere and they need to go because the time- it’s all slipping away and he can’t let them be trapped here-

But something or someone stops him, hold him back, makes it so he can’t, and slowly he starts to forget why he’s fighting or what he’s fighting for and then he succumbs, and the switch you can see in him from scared-determined-panicked to dazed-confused-happy is terrifying.

And now we viewers are on the edges of our seats, because now we know that Percy and Annabeth are in so much more danger than we thought, and now there’s a time limit, and now Grover is trapped in his own mind slowly losing himself, and now we’re wondering when it’s going to start happening to Percy and Annabeth too, and now we really need them to realise and save Grover and get the fuck out of there before it’s too late-

But uh, yeah, we… didn’t get that. Instead it was almost- portrayed as comical? Like, there wasn’t a lot of weight put on it.

Old man Satyr keeps forgetting ha ha ha. Oh Grover’s forgetting too? Wow it’s gonna be super hard to get out of that one! Oh, no it’s super easy. Barely an inconvenience! Oh really? Yeah, Percy and Annabeth have barely started to forget anything important, and then they happen to look up and see the Satyr and get reminded of Grover. And then there’s a super short chase scene and then jump cut to them finding Grover playing video games and oh funny, he doesn’t remember them! But it’s fine, it actually doesn’t matter, they get him and go and he remembers on his own a few minutes later! 😀

Speaking of; I might have missed something but did Annabeth do anything at all during that chase scene? Like, I think she went another route to try and cut him off, but then she just kinda disappears, Percy tackles him, and she never shows up…? Idk, I’ll rewatch it sometime, but as of now it’s very strange in my mind.

The car scene was kinda funny, but again, not a lot of tension at all.

(Though as someone learning how to drive that scene made me cringe because of how relatable it was lmao. Honestly, Percy drove way too well for a first timer in a crowded parking lot, and the fact that he actually made that turn decently well? Yeah, someone give him a pat on the back lol.)

… Okay so I just thought of something that is unrealistic and wildly deviating from the books to the point that it’s basically just fanfic, but hey, they deviated anyway when they introduced Hermes this early and it’s my shitty tumblr post so - imagine if there was a car chase. There. I said it. If you’re going to make Percy drive a basically stolen taxi through Los Angeles, fucking commit and make him have to outrun the cops/some monster until they manage to activate whatever makes the car teleport!

Like, do an ‘IKEA after dark’ situation where things are all happy go lucky in the club at first, and then after they talk to Hermes and the Lotus starts effecting them, shit starts to get weird, and the patrons around them start becoming strange, and there’s a creeping sense of wrong wrong wrong as they rush to find Grover and then they find him but he’s wrong, and he looks at them like they’re strangers and they don’t know how to fix it, so all they can do is grab him and run, barely remembering where they’re going or why, but they’re holding themselves together, and when one starts to slip the others are there to haul them forward and remind them what they’re doing.

They have car keys in hand, and they might not know how to drive but fuck it they need to go, so bring on the dramatic dark lighting and wild driving and many bumpy, jerky, shit-we-almost-ran-over-something-important escapades, sirens closing in behind them and then he takes a wrong turn and stares wide eyed into the headlights of an incoming truck, flinches back, eyes slaming shut and-

Silence broken only by crashing waves. Insert Santa Monica scene after slightly hysterical laughter because holy fuck they survived.

… Um, yeah soz, idk where that came from lmao.

Moving on! So, I didn’t mind them getting Hermes’ car too much. Like, hell yes she pickpockets a god. But I didn’t like the way that Annabeth got the keys. Like, he’s the God of Thieves and she’s pretty smart. No way she wouldn’t realise that he let her take them.

A way to make it better would’ve been if he’d done some subtle shit, and she’d done some subtle shit, and then it was shown with some shots that here he puts his keys in this pocket, and then a few shots later maybe she brushes past him, or she “leaves” the room but you can fuzzily see pot plant leaves moving in the background if you know to look for it, and then boom, no more keys in his pocket, and when Percy catches up with her she reveals that Hermes let her take them, and we’re like “ahh, of course, can’t help directly but isn’t stopping them if they take initiative, cool cool.”

But nope. She got they keys, thinks she somehow stole them without his knowledge, and then it’s revealed that, duh, he knew, and they’re just like, welp, guess we should’ve known! Yeah. You should’ve. Annabeth is just- not? She’s just not? Like this? This isn’t how she would- do stuff. She’s smarter than that.

But see what I mean? No tension. Need to find Hermes, oh there he is. He won’t help them, but they got his keys. Lost Grover, but found him almost right away. Don’t know how to drive, but whatever lets go. Grover lost his memory, but nah he’s got it back just fine.

Yeahhh. Idk it just felt weirdly lacking.

What also felt weirdly lacking was the reveal that the Solstice has passed and the gods are going to war.

So, most of that underwater bit wasn’t how the books went, but I’m kinda withholding judgement on how I feel depending on how the next two episodes handle it.

The deadline being up and the gods already going to war? I don’t like it, but yeah, I can see how it might work with the themes laid out.

This isn’t just a war, it’s a family fighting, and instead of Percy just doing it because it’s The Quest, this - his father releasing him from the quest, and Ares telling him it doesn’t matter and they’d go to war regardless of it the Bolt is found, and everyone saying it’s not his place - it gives Percy agency because he’s choosing to forge ahead and save his mother, and find the bolt, and save this family he’s become a part of from itself. It’s his choice now. I can see why they made that change.

Though for some reason the pacing was weird, and the reveal that war was literally upon them was… eh? Like, “oh btw you’re too late and now we’re going to war.” “Huh, interesting, but I’m still going.” Like I said; lack of tension. There’s just no real urgency. It went really fast, or maybe too slow? Idk, there was just something missing.

The four pearls thing? I was very thrown by that, and I’m still pretty uncertain on if that’ll remove all the tension in the Underworld part. Because the whole conflict is if he’ll choose going after the Bolt and saving the Olympians? Or will he choose his mother and doom them to war?

If he has four pearls, then he can do both, which means zero stakes. But I’ve read some other people’s opinions, and I agree that one of those pearls is definitely getting lost/broken/used up before he can give it to her, which means this was done to raise hopes and then bring them crashing down, so I’m withholding judgement and hoping that it won’t be too contrived.

And I don’t like that Poseidon basically says he wants Percy to save Sally too, because a huge part of Percy’s dilemma was that the gods didn’t understand or agree with Percy wanting to save his mum.

Poseidon being on Percy’s side certainly serves the themes the episode set up, with Hermes wanting to be there for his family and failing, this time with Poseidon trying to be there for Percy and Sally, and hopefully succeeding. But it just feels like Percy isn’t as alone as he should be, which is good for him as a person, but bad from a writing standpoint because it makes it feel too easy.

In the books, it’s kinda an act of rebellion, that he would even think of choosing a mortal over the gods, but here he’s… not? Because the gods - or at least Hephestus, Hermes and Poseidon - are on his side. So he’s not choosing a mortal over the gods, he’s just saving his mum, and half the gods have given him the thumbs up to do it.

Not saying they weren’t secretly supporting him in the books too, but Percy didn’t think they were. He felt alone. He felt the pressure of the consequences that would come with whatever descision he made. In the show he’s not really going against the gods, because the gods are actively endorsing him. Which means, say it with me, no tension.

Anyway, like I said: withholding judgment. I'll see how the next ones go, and then come to a proper conclusion based on a complete picture.

Also, side note: When the nereid said, “What belongs to the sea can always return” all I was thinking was the musical and Poseidon’s goofy ass voice saying “It’s a SeAShElL” 😂

Oh and btw, the graphics/makeup/cgi of the nereid was well done to my untrained eye. I have no idea about how it’s done, or if it’s actually shitty in the professional sphere, but I thought it was pretty, so- thumbs up from me.

Though the whole scene at the beach and swimming to her was so dark I literally had to turn my tv’s brightness up to see what was happening, which I also had to do with the Theme Park last episode, and I almost did with the Minatour. Man, they really have a problem with lighting during the night scenes.

But just throughout the whole episode, there's just this feeling of non-urgency. Like, in the episode where time is the most important thing, it... doesn't really feel like it matters all that much.

Um, yeah. I think that was all I wanted to say…

In conclusion, I liked Hermes, aaand not much else. It was still a fun episode, but just all round pretty iffy plot wise. Rip.

I shall leave this with saying WE FINALLY GOT WISE GIRL!! 🥳

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo episode 6 #spoilers #essay #rambles #my posts #percy jackson #annabeth chase #grover underwood #hermes #long post #poseidon #percabeth #writing #analysis #sorry for any typos

[theheromira]

Nimona appreciation post (Part 1 of I don't even know how many there will be)

Sooo, I'm rewatching Nimona for probably the 100th time now and I just need to fangirl/rant a bit to someone but as I don't have friends who liked the movie as much as me, I'm gonna write a little (or more like long) post about the first movie that touched my heart like this since forever. This is mostly going to be about details and stuff that just got to me and probably not in the order you see it in the movie (I'm gonna try but it's not gonna be 100% correct), so please bear with me. Pic for attention btw lol I did read the comic but only after watching the movie and ngl I like the movie better, maybe I wouldv'e liked it better if I read it when it came out/I was younger Also have a lil spoiler warning, just in case.

the beginning with Nimona narrating Gloreth's myth is nice and I really like the style.

loving the eyes of the 'monster' when she says "because the monsters are always out there"

"The Knight to knight"- Theme is sooo good and I looove that there is a bit of Ballisters Theme in it too

the music as a whole for the movie was soooo goood, Christophe Beck didn't nee to go that hard, but he did and I'm really thankful for that

the only line of the movie I wanted to hear in the dub of my first language/mother tongue gets delivered so good. Btw I watched the movie exclusively in english (eng dub and sub), just changed the dub for that one line but damn the amount of laughing I did after the delivery of "And tonight's the night we knight the knights!" in the german dub made my stomach hurt

the establishment of Bal as our main hero is so nice, I'm already proud of his accomplishments even tho we didn't really got to know him until now

I still think that maybe Bal is a secret child of the queen, look at them together when he was a child, you can't tell me otherwise, that head canon lives rent-free in my head

the introduction of Ambrosius is also good, you immediatly think he is some kind of Jock/Douche/Bully with all that Sportdrink-Ad, his "Hi", the sparkling Tooth-thingy, the "Woo!" and taking a photo-thing

the VA of the "It's not what Gloreth wanted"-Girl did such a good job ngl

the shot of Bal alone on that Balcony (?) watching the reporter ask if they will accept him even tho he might not be right and hearing the people boo kinda hit me a bit to hard for the fact that that problem for me is just in my head and not something I have a problem with in the society I'm in

Ambrosius jokingly asking that question and being a goofy guy surprised my the first time around and it's just cute to see, I guess

their eyes and smiles and stuff in the first few seconds you see them together just immediatly made me ship them

Bals little smile when Amb says he's gonna be a night is too precious

you won't believe how I screamed at the "They're gonna love you, like I do."-Scene and I still am in love with that scene, it gives me such a warm feeling

just telling you now, I don't know how to describe it but I'm kind of in love with their love, all the little things you notice when you really look at them interacting and stuff

also loving how Bal just leans his whole body with head on Ambs shoulder <3 it's as if he's made to be there

the heart eyes when Amb helped Bal with his armour

also funny how different their armour is: Amb has gold armour cause Gloreth probably; Bal has black armour which looks older, heavier, clunkier if you will that just shows how much more he had to work for the position he's in; Todd has silver/iron armour like the rest of the knights but it looks a bit shinier in my eyes, probably cause he's a bit of an attention seeker

Loving Ambs whole reactions when Todd messes with Bal, the twisting of his eyes when Todd first comes in to contact with Bal, the immediate angry eyes, him glancing at Todds Arm/Hand on Bals shoulder, him tensing up a few times while Tod talks, you can visibly see him breath btw (the animation team did nopt mess around), how he catches Bal as if it's nothing, his eyes going big and him getting visibly madder when Todd touches Bals face/chin and his absolutely ready-to-throw-down-body language

Same scene just Bal: he's a bit confused first, then exchanging glances with Amb, him looking a bit angry when Todd fist bumps his armour, his short glance forward when Todd just stops mid sentence, his "I knew it, he's still a lil d*ck"-look, also interesting how his eyes always stay on Todds eyes even tho Todd is very jumpy in this scene, his lil side glance to Amb when Todd shouts: "Hey, everybody" knowing how ready Amb is to deck that idiot straight in the face, also him holding Amb back and shaking his head a bit

the nervous Squire who should've just manne up a bit dang it

Bal immediatly noticing something is wrong with his sword and being distracted by the Squire

Todd in the background with his "Smack that hard. Slap it!"

my hate for the director grows everytime I hear her saying "Today is the day the kingdom will see you for who you really are." (but great foreshadowing that she's the big evil)

Amb being the only one who just says "Director" instead of some form of thank you just shows to me that he prob had a bit of privilege even among the other knights

Bal probably would've been everyones favourite student/knight if he would've been a noble

Bal riding out in the arena is me at every event, especially if there are more than like 3 people looking at me lol

Ambs lil wink to Bal and Bals lil laugh

those proud eyes that are totally in love

Sir Nectar-of-the-gods good-in-bed lol

doesn't matter what anyone says: Boldheart fits this character way more than Blackheart (the latter fits the comic version, but Boldheart is so much better for movie!Bal in my opinion)

Bal looking for Amb while getting on the stage and both of their smiles/grins are so precious

the queens little guesture when he says that anyone who wants to hold the sword could do so i kinda cute and he seems like a good leader who probably was working hard to get everyone to be equal

the little girl who stands up while the queen speaks is the one who Bal mitake for Nimona at the end, isn't she? Or do I imagine that?

the queen is 100% proud of Bal and who wouldn't?

the pause before the people start to cheer… Bals reaction as if he was sure that only this reaction wass possible makes me so sad

Ambrosius cheering and being so proud is adorable

Bal looking around and his breathing… just as if a heavy weight fell from his shoulders

now to Bals sword: first it looks hella cool, second I love that G (probably for Gloreth or Goldenloin, I guess) that got scratched an is now a B, third the scratches are kinda green on this sword while the ones on the original sword are more golden in my opinion

Bals unbelieving look when the laser hits the queen

Ambrosiu' paniced look and how he chop off Bals arm (instead of just disarming or something) says everything about how that society is (instead of trying to confront a problem just destroy it at the roots)

after the sword shatters Amb already ha let go of his sword and he looks like he can't believe what he did

Bals confused/ begging for understanding lookjust breaks my heart here

I find it kinda funny that in the subs a man shouts "Arret him! He kille the queen!" when that "man" ounds so much like Todd

Nimonas introduction is also spot on, I alreay loved her in the first frame

And know I wanna rewatch Kipo

Loving how she says "He's perfect." after the person on the news say "He's a monster."

Bal is such a badass for building his own arm and stuff, I really don't wanna go to the psychological and physically trauma he ha to have gone through/still going through until and at that moment

Bal basically is such a competent person until he thinks/lookss at Ambrosius, then it's almost as if he has just one braincell

I like the lyrics the moment he turn the radio off, I mean: "Red lights flash so we run and we hide" and he probably thinks that the knocks are police/knights

Bal just being competent and catching the bucket so it doesn't make more noise

also just for the whole movie: the little sounds his arm makes are awesome and I really like themBal just being competent and catching the bucket so it doesn't make more noise

also just for the whole movie: the little sounds his arm makes are awesome and I really like them

that change of POV when he opens the door.. now I wanna have a first person game with that story

That's it for the first part, gonna update in a few days I think

#netflix nimona #nimona 2023 #nimona #appreciation #nimona spoilers #gay knights #nimona film #fangirling

[iwonderwh0]

I can't let it go, so here's another scene of pocket ghost that I managed to put together. This one is out of context and doesn't follow any previous scene in specific, at least for now

The chicken sandwich felt too dry for Hank's taste, but after the five hours it took for him to admit his hunger, he didn't mind it as much. Although he couldn't appreciate it at the moment, now that they were miles away from any stores or drive-thus, surrounded by apartment blocks, he couldn't help but felt grateful that Connor had slipped it into his breakfast takeaway order for the day -- two donuts and a cup of coffee -- nearly eight hours ago.

The two of them -- well, technically only Hank -- were in a car, with two eyes and one dashcam fixed on the entrance of one of the grey buildings, waiting for any action that didn't seem to follow. Given the number of apartments in the building, one might expect the front door to open much more often than it actually did. Perhaps not many people lived in there after all; most of those apartments must still have been empty since the evacuation of Detroit, even though the order had been lifted months ago.

"Hank?" Connor said, breaking the silence of the past minutes.

Hank hummed questioning in response.

"There's some small animal ahead, but I can't identify which one it is."

Hank glanced at his dashcam for a moment before looking ahead, and indeed, a white cat walked on a parking lot, then stopped and lay down in the middle of it, enjoying the warmth of spring sun.

"Ah, this. It's a cat," Hank said.

"A cat," Connor echoed, "I've never seen a cat."

Hank's eyes travelled back. The cat lifted one of its back paws, tongue darting across white fur in a lazy-paced grooming session.

"Really? I thought you saw one when you hacked into my neighbour's house."

"I'm not sure if it was really a cat, the video quality wasn't exactly sharp," he paused, "Do you like cats?"

"I'm more of a dog person, you know," Hank bit into the sandwich, watching as cat stopped cleaning itself and stared blankly into the space.

"But do you like cats?"

"Everyone does," Hank shrugged, "Hell, If I woke up in a thousand years and someone asked me what's going on in the world, I'd answer that humanity is still worshiping cats - it's one of the things that never change," he said. Then he added, "Of course, that's if there's anyone left in a thousand years."

"Why don't you have a cat yourself? If you like them."

"I wanted an animal that would at the really least like me back. Can't expect the same indulgence from a cat," Hank grunted, "That reminds me - I think Sumo actually likes you more than he likes me."

"I don't think that's true. What makes you think so?"

"You need proof? Fine, explain this: when I call him - he doesn't bat an eye, but when you just look at him, saying nothing at all - he's at your feet in no time, as if you telepathically promised him a piece of steak or something. I don't get it."

Speaker rustled abruptly as Connor made some quiet sound, lost in sudden outbursts of the static. A short laugh?

"Did I finally say something funny?"

"No, not really. I'm sorry, I never thought about how that might look. I don't just look at him. I do something else."

"Which is?"

"I make a sound on a higher frequency. Dogs can hear it, humans – not so much."

"You let him in your house and he talks with your dog on a secret frequency. Fuck..," Hank shook his head in disbelief, "Never expected this from you."

"I'll take that as you're impressed," from the tone of Connor's voice Hank concluded he was pleased with his reaction.

"No shit, I've been scratching my head about this for months, even tried to look Sumo in the eyes with different face expressions. Never once did it work, not a single fucking time. Now I know why."

"You could have just asked."

"Yeah, well. What does it matter now anyway," Hank's eyes darted back to the cat, "In any case, my point is – dogs will love you no matter what, but cats can despise the living shit outta you even if you do everything right. With them, it's more of a gamble, y'know?"

"You don't mind gambling."

"Well, not when my heart is on stake. Wouldn't gamble with this crap - never worth it."

"Hank, are you implying that you wouldn't be able to handle a rejection from a cat? That sounds...a little dramatic, even for you."

Hank huffed a short chuckle.

"That's- Even for me, you say. What, am I some kind of drama queen in your book?"

Speakers rustled for half a second, then exploded with the sound of music "Ooh, yeah, ooh, yeah!"

Hank didn't need to look at the screen to know that that's Queen, specifically last minute of Bohemian Rhapsody. He felt blood rushing to his face, but as he opened his mouth to say something, the song already switched, also starting from the middle.

"-You are the dancing queen,

Young and sweet, only seventeen"

"Connor, go fuck yourself."

Fighting a smile and red in face, Hank took another bite of the sandwich, then glanced back at the front door of the building. Nobody walked in or out of it for the last 20 minutes. He didn't mind - at least he got to eat in peace. Well, almost.

Music got slightly quieter.

"How?" Connor asked.

Hank stopped eating and tried to remember what were they even talking about.

"How? Are you asking me about how you can fuck yourself?"

"Yes, I'm really curious how would you imagine me to do that. Given my... current condition."

"I have no idea. Guess you'll have to figure it out on your own."

"On it," Connor said in his earnest voice, and music got louder again.

This finally got an actual laugh out of Hank. He set the sandwich aside and and covered his face, feeling its heat on his palms and trying catch his breath.

"Just don't hurt yourself," he said, feeling warmth filling his lungs, giving up the fight against his face muscles - he wasn't sure why he had been resisting them anyway.

The cat stretched on the ground, greedily absorbing the sun's rays, resembling a sunbeam itself, as the only white spot in the overall grey area. Hank could see it looking around, as if searching for a better spot to enjoy and not entirely sure why -- more an impulse than a thought-through decision -- Hank took a piece of chicken out of his sandwich and stepped out from the car.

He crossed the parking lot and crouched down a few steps away from the cat – close enough to grab its attention, but not so close as to accidentally scare it away. Then he stretched his hand with a piece of chicken in the cat's direction, and sure enough – the cat came closer, curious. He let it sniff the treat, and just as it was ready to take a bite, started back towards the car. The cat followed.

Cat hopped onto the hood of the car as Hank patted it, and finally received a deserved piece of chicken along with a stroke. It purred blissfully in response.

"See better now?" Hank asked, sitting back into the car.

Car speakers rustled slightly.

"Yes."

#pocket ghost #dbh #dbh fanfiction #and as always quite ambitious but I'll still tag it as #hankcon #Thanks @arcanehackist for helping me with wording <3

[cinamun]

Hey fren! I have a ton of questions. Lmk if I’m being too intrusive or nosey lol.

I love your story, I always have to give you your flowers when I write you!! All hail the Queen 🙌🏾🙌🏾💐💐💐

Ok my questions:

For starting out posting and editing, do you keep a schedule for yourself to stay organized? Rn I’m finally posting on my simblr after 3 years but I find myself just constantly taking screenies instead of posting and organizing the story. It feels chaotic lol the only organizing I’ve done just for game play in general is shopping for CC every other day (it’s an addiction)

A question I wanted to ask for a while is, if you are commissioning someone for poses what are the average prices you pay (or better yet, what do you think a good price is to pay for pose commission)? Sometimes I have these perfect poses in my head and when I’ve searched for hours I normally just end up giving up.

Lastly, I noticed your post from yesterday said you had 25 photos loaded in photoshop. Do you have all the art board (or images) side by side to edit them consistently and simultaneously?

Thank you if you answer!!

Good morning bestie!! Let me just go on ahead and adjust this crown right quick lol THANK YOU and I got you!

I'm chaotic and impulsive but I have a little bit of a routine. Follow me under the cut!

Okay, SO!! For the first question about posting and editing.... I usually have an idea for the next scene while working on the previous one. So when I go in-game for story updates, the idea is already there and I'm just setting up shots and making the scenes look good. I don't have a schedule other than my posting schedule, so when you mention last night, I was editing pics that I had taken earlier in the day or the day before. So my schedule is usually sitting in photoshop all night the day before I post.

For pose commissions, I've only done that twice. I've had real good luck over the years finding poses or animations for anything I've needed. I would say make an offer to donate to them if you know their shit is dope and move anywhere between $5 to $10 USD. For the poses I commissioned, they weren't released publically so that's extra special (tip them more!). Also keep in mind if you're asking for accessories to be used, how many sims are in the pose, etc. For pose searching, try to be as vague as you can. "ts4 cleaning poses" and then see what comes up is one example and don't shy away from animations! They work with pose player, most without WW and can make for some great screenshots.

I load up all the pictures in Photoshop plus whatever templates I'm using (like the texting one or the dust overlays), and edit in order of sequence. This is where all the dialogue happens so sometimes I edit out of order if I know the dialogue for one scene already and maybe not the others. I hope i'm making sense lol. I spend a lot of time on this part because the words might change given which picture I've decided on (some scenes I take multiple screenshots of and multiple angles and then decide later which one to use). I go pic by pic, doing editing and adding dialogue individually then saving them, closing them and moving on to the next one. Once I'm completely done then I flip through them a few times as if I were the reader to try and catch any typos, etc.

This got really long but let me know if that helps or if I can elaborate more!!

#ts4 storytelling tips

[dontmindme2600]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

It’s no problem, I love answering questions like these!!! But also that’s a RRREAALLLYYYY hard question for me bc it changes depending on what I’m currently obsessed with lollll and it’s even harder for me to rank from least favorite to favorite so,,, if you don’t mind I’m just gonna keep it to anime/games and list like off the top of my head in no particular order!! If that’s ok:

-Yusuke from YYH (I’m a sucker for the “punk guy with a heart of gold” trope and also the first episode/chapter where he shows up to his own funeral and gets shocked at how much everyone misses him is like,,, the only anime/manga scene that actually makes me cry lmfao. It added a lot more depth to his character as well and I thought it was cool that Togashi managed all that in literally the first volume)

-Illumi from HxH (his design is iconic and I just think he’s cool. It’s honestly mostly the design… I wanted to only do one character per series for this post but Chrollo and Kite are also up there)

-Jolyne from JJBA (funny, badass and kinda relatable in a way??? Like I’m not very confrontational at all but somehow I just. Get her. I also love the way she speaks lmao)

-Spike from Cowboy Bebop (Looking at my blog theme I bet you could never guess! there’s a lot of reasons I like him but to keep it brief I just think he’s very fun to analyze bc his character is so complex if that makes sense?? Also he’s hot which is a bonus)

-Ginko from Mushi-shi (just seems like a cool dude!! Helpful and knowledgeable)

-Vash from Trigun 1998 (How can you NOT like him,,, I immediately liked him since his intro in episode one lmao. Forever mourning the loss of his accent in the 2023 version)

-N from Pokémon (This one’s the hardest to explain for some reason but tbh I just think that he’s cool! His backstory and mannerisms are really interesting and as a Pokémon fan it’s nice to see when they get really creative with the human characters! Also keeping true to my one character per series rule here but Guzma and Team Skull as a whole are also hilarious and I love them)

-Majima from Yakuza (specifically the version from 0, but I like all of them. He just makes me laugh lmao which is super fun!! But he also shows that he’s actually a very respectable guy on a lot of occasions, which bumped him up for me. Oh also his intro in 0 IS SO GOOD)

-Klavier from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (I’m ngl I just think he’s hot but also he made me laugh a lot… and it was always just generally really fun/interesting whenever you got to talk to him in game)

-Otacon from MGS (Like a lot of other characters on this list it just started with him being really funny. I mean come on you really can’t beat a character introduction where you hype the dude up to be this super serious science hacker guy, and then when you finally meet him he pisses his pants and rants to you about anime… Aside from that his codec calls are really fun, Otasune is a good ship, and his character development as he ages is also interesting)

#too many of these are men #I’ve realized so many of these #are just characters that make me laugh lmaooo #also sorry that I don’t really have an official top characters list lol #but if I can name these ones off the top of my head it’s probably pretty close #also also sorry if this was a late response!! genuinely had to think about this one #other close contenders are Laurent from the great pretender #Kaiji from Kaiji and Joe from Megalobox #the asker seems to be collecting these types of posts going by their profile which is cool #so I hope they don’t mind the rambling #ask

[egglantine23]

Titans part 4

Wow it’s been a while with this one! I wanted to sort of lay out a few good ideas for the first season of titans since I never touched it in my first posts. So without further ado here it is:

Let’s get this out of the way nightwing is nightwing from the very beginning no stupid still robin stuff he is nightwing and he moved out of Bruce’s manner.

Cory’s memory loss is fine but I want badass alien star so she is shipwrecked on earth and hiding from her crazy sister

Raven can keep her name for a civilian identity but she goes by her nickname raven, she stays the depressed goth kid who witnessed her moms murder.

And gar is mostly fine but I want to add some things to him since I only really remembering him being very bland, first he’s the theater kid, you don’t have to lie about green hair in theater dyed hair is the norm, but i don’t know if I want to put him in tech or as a actor. Nope great idea he’s in tech which makes him a jack of all traits, the April has a crane license in rottmnt.

Now I of course will now be adding the wonderful and amazing victor stone aka cyborg! Man I missed this guy, he was probably my favorite character in the animated show. He plays high school football and is friends with gar and knows about gars powers, he also knows raven from poetry club

In titans they also introduced Jason Todd as a recurring character but I don’t like that so we will push him to later

Time for PLOT!!!!

In the beginning not much will change for raven and dick, her mom still dies and dick is trying to help her get to a safe place and there being chased by something evil like demons that dick has been searching for for months

Now the deviations gar and victor and walking home from school and they are just about to meet up with victors dad, dr. Stone at his job when Cory’s ship crashes and victor gets caught in the blast, the group rushes him inside and dr. Stone has them bring him to his lab, cyborg is here!

Raven and dick also witness the crash and rush over to help by this time they where able to shake the demons but the crash makes them come back, they are getting destroyed by these demons when star sees them and comes out to help, cyborg is still processing what just happened with his dad and gar, somehow they end up coming to the conclusion that since gar and his family knows a lot about being an outsider cyborg might stay with them a while, we have a heartfelt scene with cyborg and his dad before

Star crashes into the window after being thrown by the demons!

Star gave the group an upper hand but after a while it wasn’t enough, gar and cyborg now join and we get a epic fighting as a team battle

Afterwords dr. Stone comes out to see if his son is ok and recognizes dick from the many times he has worked with Batman, and we have a catch up scene with the group and they realize that there are going to be a lot more demons and someone need to stop them this transitions into the titans tower and the team is now formed.

This is rather a two part episode with more plot I didn’t go over or above is part 1 and below is part 2

Now next episode

Titans tower is an old Wayne building that is sadly unprepared for its new job so dick calls Alfred, no not Bruce he’s still mad at Bruce for whatever reason, Alfred can’t make it so he sends Jason to drop of the stuff instead.

Now time for Jason Todd, now you might ask oh egglantine how will you integrate Jason one of your favorite Battfam members into the story?

I won’t

Yea I love the guy but this is titans and in order to avoid the transition into a Batman show Jason Todd will not be a recurring character. There will be cameos but any story that involves him will be a dick Grayson storyline.

I actually have the idea that as the show progresses the Batfam will be more comic relief or a running gag of no one knows how many siblings dick actually has and dick never tells

*titans in a later season calling batcave* Dick: hi Jason! Gar: wait Jason!! I thought he was dead!!! Jason eating a bagel: yea I’ve been good for like 6 years now Dick: that time you tried to kill us was pretty crazy though 😊 Titans: 😦

This is getting long enough and I have homework so I will see you next time! Also I am more than happy to answer any questions inbox should be open!

#jason todd #titans au #titans #dc universe #dick grayson #starfire #garfield logan #raven #rachel roth #titans!jason todd #titans!verse

[dammons-forgefire]

https://www.tumblr.com/arctophyllax/735707485263085568/actually-theres-a-way-to-ask-larian-to-give-us

Omg i found this!! Request send already! Spread it my love our men needs a hug at least!

Hello anon, thank you for sharing!

I'll definitely ask them to give us more interactions with our favorite tieflings, but I will be completely honest; I think there are limits to what we can realistically ask for here. Do some expectation management, if you will.

So far we don't even have hugs for our direct companions and lovers in the game, so if hugs for NPCs are to come, it might take a while. Perhaps even a long while. I still think they would definitely implement them should they see the demand. Larian is overall great when listening to fans and players.

But there are also a lot of things I doubt we can expect them to implement.

The way a lot of the NPCs are written feels like their story should take place off-screen as well, and making more of it happen on-screen would probably take a very long time of writing and recording more dialogue, among other things.

I doubt they will add any new permanent companions, as that would mean an insane level of additional effort for them. And while Zevlor, for example, is extremely strong and I would have loved for him to help us more under Moonrise, I think overall, the area was supposed to be difficult but manageable, which it already is, even in Tactician difficulty, especially if you have Aylin to aid you in the fight. Adding him to fight with us there would probably not be too difficult, but it feels as though they would have to buff Ketheric in order for things to still be balanced.

Now this might just be me, but as much as I adore Zevlor (among a lot of other NPCs), and even though I would have loved to hug him or even flirt with him during the party in Act I, accepting something like that or even having him sleep with Tav there doesn't seem to be in character to me. He seems more like the type to be caught off guard and flattered, but not like someone who would ever act on it, even if he did have a little crush on Tav. I could be wrong, though.

There is also a big difference between changes like that during early access and now that the game is released. It is no longer in active development, even though they are still working on a lot of things. But the game is released. It's out. I don't see them putting in thousands of work-hours into completely new character quests that they didn't at least already explore during earlier stages of development.

I know they had something else planned for Zevlor in Act II, but from what I heard, that was about him intentionally betraying the refugees, which I'm very glad they didn't implement.

Now, as much as I understand some people wanting to ask for romances of their favorite NPCs (I've seen Zevlor, Dammon, Rolan, Raphael, Omeluum, Abdirak, Kar'niss, Gortash, Orin, Nere, Barcus, Rugan, and a whole bunch more that people want to romance), writing a whole new romance that doesn't just feel like an afterthought, but fleshed out takes a lot of time. And you can already tell that, because even most of the main companions don't feel like they ever finished those. Which also means that the companions need to be the top priority here.

Wyll was rewritten a few months before the game was released, and even now, months AFTER release he is still hours behind in content compared to other companions. It just takes a very long time to write, produce, record, polish, animate, then fully implement things. Even with mocap, there are still animators who have to properly animate everything. Mocap doesn't do the full job here, so even smaller animations take time.

Something as fleshed out with as many scenes and dialogue options as Astarion's romance took them 4 full years of constant development, recording and many iterations to get things right. And even there they still have to keep working, fix things, rewrite smaller things, add more dialogue, etc.

Larian worked on the game for years to get it to this point, so another romance, a fully developed quest line, could easily take a year during active development. Outside of development, it could take much longer, so to me it doesn't sound feasible to create something like that for a character that isn't part of the main group.

They already have their hands full with hundreds of things they still fix and develop, the entire upper city was cut fairly shortly before release, so it will probably be put back in. And I wouldn't be surprised if that meant some changes as to what we can see and who we can meet in Act III, but even then, I doubt they will make smaller NPCs romanceable.

Hugs? I would like that. A few more one-night stands with some extra dialogue? Sure. But I don't think we will get any more companions, or full romances. (Which is, by the way, the reason I think Frazer has been told not to hype up a potential romance with Dammon, not to inspire hope where there is none. He is a big part of the story for Karlach, that was already written in Early Access and developed quite a bit before being ultimately dropped for now. But creating a full romance with him is not in scope of what they can realistically put out with the level of quality they aspire to have.)

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #wow #this comes off as waaaay more negative than I intended it to be #I do think they absolutely listen to feedback #but we should probably not get our hopes up for something that would take thousands of work hours

[hazelcallahan]

hi dani, hope you're having a good one. your gifs are so vibrant and hq! if you don't mind sharing, what's your process?

i appreciate the compliment! i first started making gifs back during my glee fandom days in 2011 so i have been doing this for a while lmao, but here's my general process (under a cut because it got long as hell):

i'm gonna assume you know the general giffing process for this - if you need me to help you out with screencaps, lmk! just make sure whatever you use is 1080p. i torrent to get the best possible quality, which is its own tutorial, but there's plenty of those out there.

open up whatever you use to make gifs - i use adobe photoshop cc that i definitely legally got - and go into file -> scripts -> load files into stack and select all the pictures.

once you've done that, go to the window tab and check "timeline" to add the timeline window to your workspace and click "create video timeline, then click the three small boxes in the bottom left to convert it to a frame animation. then go to the hamburger menu in the top right and click "make frames from layers". this will actually put the frames in reverse, so go to the same menu and click "reverse frames". from here i go the same menu AGAIN, click "select all frames", then change the frame delay to 0.05.

now it's time to crop! for the best quality, make sure your image size matches that of tumblr's. tumblr's image width is 540px, if you're doing two images side by side it's 268px, and i do not recommend doing three side by side because things get weird. the height can be whatever you want.

sharpening is another aspect of getting those gifs as crisp as possible. there are many ways to get a good sharpen, but the way i do it, you have to convert your timeline back to video timeline, so click the little icon in the bottom left:

then select all your layers, right click, and select "convert to smart object". then, with that layer selected, go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen, then use these settings:

duplicate that sharpened layer, then go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur, with these settings:

then take the layer that has both the sharpen and the blur, and set the opacity to 50%.

now it's time to colour! i have the same general process to colour all my gifs, sometimes with an added selective colour layer if i really want to amp up or turn down a certain colour. but all of them can be found under layer -> new adjustment layer. first is a curves layer to brighten up the whole thing

then another, different curves layer to add some contrast:

then a vibrance layer set to pretty high, around 80-100% but i play it by ear because the next layer is actually a gradient map set to soft light with 50% opacity to add some more contrast and tone down the vibrancy a bit

now, in order, i mess around with a selective colour layer (generally i only touch the red, yellow, white, black, and neutral colours, unless there's something i really wanna specifically bring out like the cyans/blues/greens in a lot of the arcane gifs) and for this there's no real system. you just gotta play it by ear depending on the scene. next, do the same with a colour balance layer. i usually top it off with a levels layer to add just a tiny bit more contrast, but that isn't entirely necessary as you can do the same by amping up the blacks in the selective colour layer.

once you're done colouring, go to file -> save for web. make sure to set the looping to "forever", and keep an eye out for the file size. luckily for newer gifmakers, the size limit is a whole 10MB now (though sometimes it'll cap out at something like 9.8 so stay on the safe side). it used to be a LOT smaller, iirc it was 500KB when i first started. if your gif is over size, you're gonna have to just cut out some frames by playing with the edges on the timeline window, since cutting down the colours will affect quality.

you're actually not quite done here - after you've saved it, close your file and then open the gif you just made. it'll default open in frame animation, and you'll see that the delay on the frames is actually 0.07 now. it's something that happens during the conversion to video timeline. select all frames and change that delay back to 0.05 since 0.07 is actually a noticeably slower and less smooth gif. save that the same way you did before, and NOW you're done! thanks for sticking around! happy giffing!

#tutorial #gonna make that a tag so i can find it in the future

[x0401x]

A 2nd season of Tsurune has been announced. Do you think we'll be finally getting all the KaiSei interactions or will they continue pushing Mina/Sei as they did in s1? Was there even any backlash from the Japanese fandom for the fact that they have basically scrapped Seiya and Kaito's relationship?

Another dream come true, am I right? ;)

I think we can hope to see Kaito and Seiya acting more or less the way they do in canon for this new season. Probably not entirely, since it would be too abrupt a change given how S1 went, but I don't think KyoAni has anywhere else to run to now. I mean, Seiya is around Kaito 99.9% of the time in volume 2 and most of his lines are him talking to Kaito directly. The only time I can recall that he isn't with Kaito is the scene where he was helping Minato after he got out of the elevator and started feeling sick. Also, Seiya's conflicts involving Minato are already over and done with, so there's nothing to make fanservice out of. There would have to be a lot of changes in order to push SeiMina in this one, and considering everything that has happened, I don't think it'd be wise of KyoAni to take risks with adding so much original content a second time. Also, from what I have seen, the Japanese fans don’t care much for SeiMina, so KyoAni wouldn’t lose anything by quietly setting it aside.

Now, about the backlash, I've commented on it a long time ago, but Japanese people usually do not engage in negative criticism of any kind, be it constructive or not. They either say good things or say nothing. Well, mostly. When I looked through the Japanese tag on Twitter, I was surprised to see quite a few negative reviews, even after the arson attack and even after the arsonist revealed that Tsurune was the anime he claimed to have been a “rip-off of his own novel”. In fact, I had gone to Twitter back then to see people’s opinions about that, not about ships, and I was very appalled to see that so many of the negative comments were about Seiya and his relationship with Minato. I must add that I was looking through the general Tsurune tag, and not searching for their names specifically. But in-between people calling the arsonist a dumbass because “Tsurune was based off a novel that came out way before he submitted his novel to Esuma Bunko”, I of course found reviews of the anime too. It was eye-opening, and actually kinda funny, to see that all of the foreigners in the tag were posting SeiMina left and right, while the Japanese viewers were talking about how Seiya "stands no chance" and "Minato's eyes are clearly in love with the coach". I also saw a lot of people comparing Tsurune to Free! because of the way Seiya was portrayed in the anime, saying that "KyoAni can't make anything other than the jealous childhood friend trope" and things of the sort. But these were clearly anime-only's, so I have no idea what they think of SeiKai being swept under the rug.

Still, though, I think this shows that KyoAni keeps an eye on the fans' opinions, because, if you take a moment to go through the official arts and merchandize, you'll find that there's literally no SeiMina artworks anywhere. The only one I've ever seen was for a Tsurune-Violet Evergarden double event, where people got exclusive postcards that had Seiya and Minato on them. Still, the theme of these postcards was the protagonists with their respective best friends, which is why Violet was featured with Lux in the VE one even though Lux is a novel-only character. Nothing suggestive either; just the two of them sitting side by side and not even making eye contact. That's it. That's literally the only one I've ever found. The rest is literally all Masaki and Minato, and the movie itself was centered around them, so perhaps KyoAni is steering towards the novels now. *crosses fingers*

#tsurune #tsurune tsunagari no issha #narumiya minato #takehaya seiya #takigawa masaki #onogi kaito #kyoani #kyoto animation

[jjraderftw]

Genshiken Second Season (ep. 1,3,4,10)

The last bit of this show actually got me interested in it. The updated animation, the introduction of new characters, and more upbeat plots per episode made me find a lot more overall enjoyment in the show and had me chuckling a bit throughout the anime. I think the second season did a good job exploring what it truly means to be an otaku while also exploring the fears and struggles of knowing yourself, your interests and your sexuality.

The idea of being a true otaku is displayed in this season. To be an otaku means to evolve and avidly partake in the media you consume. It’s not enough to simply watch an anime or read manga, but avidly become one with it. This is possible through activities such as cosplaying and writing fanfiction/doujinshi. These activities involve you actively partaking in the fandom you like to attain the fictional desires most otakus have. You grow the media and it changes based on its fan base too. The attributes of certain anime and manga are added to a theoretical database that fans can access and use in their own writings and outfits. This season, we see lots of both cosplay and writing. Chika has embraced her inner otaku and began creating her own original works that draw upon stuff she has seen or read. She has become an active participant in the world of fiction that anime fans love to interact with, which may itself become part of the database as well. The rest of the cast such as Sue, Oone, and Rika express themselves through cosplay to live out and become their fantasies. There is even a scene where Oone mentions how cosplay has to be perfect in order to truly live up to the source material, including wearing (or not wearing) the same type of underwear and having the same tone of voice.

The idea of coming to terms with your person and interests are talked about in this season. Characters who were ashamed of their interests and kinks such as Chika have come to terms with who they are. They no longer need to ridicule others or hide their true colors to be comfortable in their own skin. She has accepted herself as an otaku and removed the stereotypes attached to that label from herself. However, Hato is a special case in this topic. Hato is someone who likes to cross dress as a girl and likes to be seen as a girl while in club in order to show his true interest in fujoshi. Outside of the club, he dresses like a boy and hides his true interests, afraid of being called out for liking guys (which he himself is also conflicted about). Through the episodes we watch, we see Hato break out of his shell and talk about his interests in his guy persona with Maderame, whom he has a somewhat complicated interest in. He is able to show the others in the club both sides of himself and finally learns to feel comfortable saying how he enjoys the fujoshi community. He claims his interest has nothing to do with his sexuality but he starts questioning this a bit when he remembers the level of comfort he has with Madarame. These episodes show that it’s okay to be weary of your sexuality and explore options. There is no shame in that and we as a society should see it as okay too. Furthermore, it helps further extinguish the fear people have about their interest and kinks. In moderation and within reason, there is no reason to be fearful of liking something.

[bridgyrose]

Finally watched the last episode of Ice Queendom, and for a finale, its was really nice to see the start of Vol 2 being added at the end with the food fight, Ozpin's talk with Blake, and the added extras of the team going out to be friends. A nice, relaxing episode for an ending.

That said, its actually nice that we did get to see a little interaction with Sun and the rest of team RWBY to actually show just how their friendship develops from seeing him as a stow away to his first day around Beacon with his team. I may not be fond of Sun as a character, but I will admit, this was definitely a scene that was needed.

Also, Weiss waiting for Blake to finish talking to Ozpin so she could walk to the cafe with her was a nice touch to show how Weiss is growing as a character. Especially with how she talks about wanting to make changes to the SDC and is not willing to turn a blind eye to what she knows the SDC has been up to in regards to faunus. Its nice to be able to see that kind of development for Weiss on screen, and even more so once you realize just how much of an effect Blake had to have on Weiss in order for her to start rejecting the way she was taught to regard the faunus and set aside her own prejudices in order to make that big of a change over a break between semesters. Which, again, was another much needed scene just to be able to show how much Weiss actually cares about her friends now that she has them and accepts them as people she can trust.

And the food fight scene was phenomenal, even if it wasnt the full fight. The way the aura enhancement of the food to be used as weapons was animated when Weiss and Yang picked theirs up, the animation in general was fun, and it was nice to actually see Weiss loosen up and start the fight with everyone else following.

Overall, I really liked this series and the content it brings into the main series. A nice, can be a stand alone/can be actual events for canon series of events that helps bring together more of the friendship development for team RWBY, and really shows that these girls really care about each other and have a lot of trust after only a few weeks of knowing their team.

#rwby #rwby ice queendom spoilers #rwby ice queendom #ice queendom

[chidoroki]

What are your top 5 Isabella chapters? (You're so cool!!!)

Oh anon, you're amazing and I hope you know by asking me anything about this woman means that I'm gonna do more than simply list out the chapters for you.

Okay, sooo these chapters may seem like obvious choices but they're no doubt the first few that came to my mind (which may or may not be because I have their numbers memorized). Unfortunately I don't think I have the heart to rank them because aahh, I love each one a significant amount and for various reasons?? and whichever one I deem as the best could easily change the more I think about it.. so I'm just gonna list them in chronological order instead. Hope that's okay!

1 - Chapter 24: Inspection, Part 1 Part of me wants to cheat and list chapter 24 & 25 together since both cover November 2nd and the major events in said chapters are what make S1EP8 one of the best episodes to showcase how terrifyingly great Isabella is, but if I had to choose just one, then I'll go with ch24. Yes seeing her break Emma's leg and announce Norman's shipment are both jaw dropping moments capable of making anyone speechless, but ch25 also has quite a few pages just solely dedicated to the internal dialogues of the duo, so that doesn't help us here hm?. While Isabella dropping her "loving mother" facade and speaking to the food Emma & Norman directly as an actual caretaker is chilling, her confrontation with Ray in ch24 leaves more of an impact on me, given their mother-son relationship and totally not because they're my two favorites, that's crazy. Not only does she nonchalantly reveal that she had Krone killed at the same time Ray was wondering the sister's whereabouts, but she also labels Ray as a traitor, effectively cutting him off as her personal spy and any safety she once guaranteed him. She then makes the resolve to control the children with her own hands instead from now on, which sends Ray into an absolute panic, because if he is no longer safe, then no one is. Along with the anime giving us that added scene of her tossing Ray aside like a rag doll and every frame/panel that shows the sheer confidence she has on her face, having Isabella knock off her biggest ally is such a powerful move to me. This chapter is basically like the queen setting up the board for the perfect checkmate. And it works.

2 - Chapter 37: Escape Courtesy of all Krone's information in ch20-21, Grandma Sarah's single panel flashback in ch23 and even Isabella's own ID number way back in ch3, it was pretty common knowledge at this point that Isabella also experienced the same false childhood as any other kid at Grace Field, but finally seeing her morals and backstory from her own perspective will literally take any hatred you had towards her and toss it out the window (probably) because you'll feel emotions you didn't think you would've originally had towards this fantastic antagonist. The brief interaction we get to witness between her and Leslie is beyond wholesome, so of course the story chooses to break your heart the next moment by skipping right to his shipment and a heartbroken Isabella (which is portrayed way better in anime as manga literally has a panel of her smiling as she waves goodbye, like..huh?). It's also confirmed that she attempted to escape GF and just how important Leslie's song is to not only her, but to Ray as well as he uses this tune in order to verify that Isabella is indeed his real mother. On top of all that, we come to learn that she excels with her position as Mom for the sake of the children so she can indirectly extend their lives as long as possible and give them all the love she can before they’re unfortunately shipped off. Yes her main goal is to stay alive in this hellish world herself, I know, but this chapter is just a fantastic example showing how Isabella isn't as selfish as she once seemed and does care about her children a great deal (and more than herself later on in the story), even going as far as retrieving the ropes the fifteen escapees used to cross the cliff so the pursuing demons wouldn't locate them as quickly. She accepts her defeat and admits her mistakes, as well as express her well wishes to those that escaped and continues to care for the kids that were left behind while she can. There's just.. a lot to this chapter and it does so much for her character y'all, you know this. Needless to say but the anime handles this chapter wonderfully, especially with the soundtracks and the fantastic choice of having her let her hair down aahh she's beautiful.

3 - Chapter 170: Together As much as I love the very end of ch169 and the pure shock it gave me, I gotta choose the following chapter because it made it just as excited to learn what led Isabella to completely turn against Peter. We're reminded of how frustrated Isabella is with the farm system and its tactics that causes them to live in fear, flaunting freedom as bait as they all constantly fight each other just to survive longer than anyone and prove to be useful, less they get killed for acting out or by simply giving up. She successfully manages to rally every single sister & mother at the GF headquarters together (with barely any sort of resistance or issue) in order to rebel against the Ratri clan, which happens mere moments before Emma & company actually raid the facility by the way, just to avoid any suspicions from Peter about the plan itself. Amidst all the suspense and anger, we hear of Isabella's thoughts about how relieved she is to see her children again and how touched she is at the fact they still refer to her as their mom, even if she believes she doesn't deserve the sentiment. In true "Iron Lady" fashion, she keeps these emotions to herself and expresses that it's just convenient she and the kids share a similar goal. Oh, she also refers to Peter as a boy, which I will always find hilarious. To top it all off, it gives me the best mother-daughter moment ever. This is the chapter where she completely won me over and has been a favorite of mine ever since.

4 - Chapter 177: Mother And this is the chapter that completely breaks me. I'm not exaggerating when I say that whenever I revisit this moment I either start to tear up or get real emotional, so I shall let you know my emotional state after I sit and write this out. So, the wonderful woman I fell in love with just seven chapter ago? Mhhmm, DEAD! By some fucking random ass demon who is no doubt my most hated character in this series. ANYWAYS. This unforgivable event was first teased in the last couple pages in ch176, which officially released on MOTHER'S DAY, so not only is that such horrible timing but THEN we had to painfully wait a full week to see if the Iron Lady would survive this or if the children were gonna lose yet another parental figure. Needless to say, the worst case scenario happened and my heart was shattered into pieces. My emotions aside, the chapter itself is (surprisingly?) one of my favorites out of the entire series and is heartwarming is the most upsetting way possible. Isabella putting herself in harms way to save Emma & the other girl (with no hesitation might I add) speaks volumes about how much she loves her kids and how far she'll go to ensure they can live a bright future, even if it means by sacrificing her own life, which was once the only she cared about. The fact Isabella still possessed enough strength after being stabbed to hold back this bastard demon twice her size is worth mentioning as well. Once the demon is taken care of, the first thing she's concerned with is Emma & everyone else's safety, showing us even further that they now take priority over herself (even since ch37, I’ll argue). Despite literally giving her life to save Emma (along with all her other subtle moments I've no doubt mentioned here & in other posts), Isabella admits that she still hasn't done enough to atone for all the trauma she caused them, even though the kids had already forgiven her a couple chapters ago, she still feels the need to do so much more for them. The hug between her and the majority of the GF kids is sad as hell, especially with Emma's internal & external dialogue, but it is always the final interaction between mother and son that breaks my heart. Isabella apologized to all the kids in ch174, but her tearful apology to Ray here holds so much weight; for not treating him right or loving him as a true mother should to her own son, for all the lies and pain that made his life a living hell which left him suicidal. Her final wish for Ray to take care of everyone hurts in all the right ways because despite their differences, they both care for their family so much where they would literally die and live for them. It's a lot of emotion coming from a woman who once had an unbreakable facade, and seeing her use up her final bit of strength to share all that with Ray gets me close to tears. This death had upset me so much that I stopped myself from listening to "Isabella's Lullaby" for a good year because I knew that hearing that melody would only remind me of this heartbreaking chapter. (and yes I'm making myself emotional right now).

5 - Chapter 181.7: A Mother’s Determination Take everything that made the previous four mentioned chapters so great (her strategic mind/her dedication/her powerful influence/her love for the children) and combined all of that into one and you shall get Isabella's special one-shot. It shows us the very beginning (Jan-Feb 2046) of Isabella's time as Grandma of the Grace Field plantation and how she commits to her plan of helping the escapees when they return. In order to succeed, she first reduces the number of shipments (which effectively spares many children's lives), suspects she might be targeted by the other sisters & mothers and even successfully determines which women might actually try to backstab her, all in the span of one month. She also anticipated the perfect moment when they were gonna strike, flawlessly counters their sad attempt of sabotaging her, then easily taunts them to the point where the four sisters are visibly shaking in fear of their lives. Without any delay, she proposes the idea to destroy GF in such a calm and confident manner and proceeds to tug at their emotions with the reveal that each one of their own kids are still alive, how frustratingly unfair the farm system and how strongly she believes she can tear it all down. This is the Iron Lady at her best, and nothing motivates her more than her children. Of course rebelling to end this endless cycle of hatred and fear is a huge factor in why Isabella is putting in so much effort to change destiny, but fighting in order to secure a bright future where her children are free to live normal lives without any sort of fear is something she has always strived for, and now that she has the power to openly assist them create that future, you can bet she's gonna try her damn hardest to give them the happiness they so rightfully deserve. We started the story off with the children learning from her, so it’s pretty amazing (despite this chapter being released after the main story finished) that we end with Isabella using what she learned from her children in order to take control and unite against the real enemy. The only downside to this fantastic chapter is the last panel because I don't wanna be reminded that this absolute queen is actually dead, damn it!

Alrighty, I think that about does it.. and I have no doubt I repeated myself a bunch too hahaa. I still have no idea which chapter I enjoy most now, even among those I mentioned briefly, but it's clear as day that Isabella is amazing. Thank you again for the question anon! Always a pleasure chatting about TPN and I hope you have a great rest of your day/night!

#the promised neverland #tpn manga #tpn isabella #mother isabella #a wild ask appeared #chidoroki used chatter

[then-annnd-now]

MOVIES

- By Movie buff (Vienne Mhariel Sister) The astonishing capacity of the human mind to deal with imagination is a gift to us all. A massive range of contexts can become a reality when screenwriters and screenplays are translated into what we now enjoy as motion pictures.

Let's acknowledge the essential parts of a movie

Ready... Action!

There are several elements that are essential in a movie, but today we will focus on two:

> Cinematography > Editing

Motion pictures or commonly known as movies are undeniably one of the people’s favorite pastimes as it provides both entertainment and a way for us to unwind. Aside from movies being a means to release different sets of emotions, movies bring out our artistic front especially when we try to analyze how movies gradually change and progress over time.

We will ride the time machine and take you back to the early development of movies, and compare it to what we see now.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Portraying a film is not just about recording an act. It is mostly about the way the images are recorded and captured. Cinematography is composed of visual elements displayed on-screen such as lighting, exposure, camera angles, focus, color, and framing. Old movies are classified as classics for a reason. As technology has been evolving over time, so does cinematography. Cinematography has come a long way from monochrome to color to digital film.

Cinematography back then are filmed in monochrome

> Santa Claus (1898) > The Kiss in the tunnel (1899) > Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878)

Figure 1. Santa Claus

Figure 2.The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899)

Figure 3. Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878).

If you base the early movies on today’s standards, these movies are considered primitive.  Movies today such as the Fast and Furious series have totally more developed cinematography. The addition of colors in movies as early as the 1900s has brought a fresh and brand-new look to the film and television world. The changing camera angles while capturing multiple subjects while maintaining the stability and hold of the equipment shows how movies have become more advanced in terms of their cinematography. When the movie conveys a different emotion, the lighting also changes. This is to attract one’s interest by relating the visual elements to the perception and interpretation of the viewers.

EDITING

This element integrates all the necessary scenes, tones, and effects effortlessly. Editing gives the film’s progression the essential rhythm to keep it interesting. This is more than just selecting and filtering the best footage and arranging it in the right order. This also gives the movie a sense of continuity.

In the early films, the duration usually just lasts up to a minute or two. This is because no editing processes were invented during that time. In terms of pacing, the speed of the scenes remains the same throughout the film.

Much like the first film, Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878), a nature photographer was hired to capture a running horse to prove that the four hooves are lifted once the horse gallops. All images were put together and created and played throughout which introduced the motion picture.

Before, in order to introduce another character, the camera has to stop filming and allow the new character to join the scene before continuing. Scenes in a film are then connected. An example of this is the film Cinderella (1898).

In today’s editing standards, scenes are easily cut out and/or added because of the editing techniques introduced. The editing techniques today have become so developed that animals that are not there during the actual filming magically appear in the final cut of the movie with the use of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI). An example of this is the tiger from the Life of Pi (2012). It was for sure too risky to film an actual tiger along with the actor. Thanks to helpful editing technology, the tiger scenes were made possible.

Figure 4. Life of Pi Tiger CG

There have already been several advancements in film and movie technology. Compared to the movies before, the movies now are a lot more entertaining and effective in conveying a story. They are more pleasant to the viewers. Although most of us would prefer to watch movies nowadays, we can never fully appreciate the progress and development in motion pictures if it wasn’t for the early films that made innovators invent some of the most helpful tools and strategies in the film industry. This is why we appreciate, remember, progress, and contribute to the artistic and technological and approach of the movie-making process.

#movies #film #history of movie #cinematography #motionpictures #monochrome #filmmaking #moviemaking #CGI #digitalfilm #editing #technology #motion #then and now #media back then and now #Youtube #entertainment #popculture #media

[pgy4611fiu]

Final work by: Emily Rosario

title: Girlhood Core

My two main inspirations were the photographers Melissa Haugen, and Juuso Westerlund. I came across both of them on Pinterest. I was immediately drawn in by the way that they present movement in the photos. The photos capture a sense of animation and youthfulness that I would also like to present. I also appreciate how their images romanticize the ordinary life of kids as they go about their day.

One of my other sources for inspiration is the 2017 film, The Florida Project. This strong film follows the story of six-year-old Moonee and her fellow playmates. Living in a shoddy motel off the highway right next to Disney World, Moonee lives a rough low income life with her struggling single mother. Despite the harsh reality of her life, Moonee has no trouble living in her childlike world, where her worries are those of getting enough playtime while the sun is out.  This reminds me very much of my eight-year old sister who still maintains her bright and lively character even after our family has gone through traumatic events and difficulties. This theme of innocence and childlike naivety to the realities and sufferings that adult are forced to confront. 

Project Description:

"Girlhood Core" is meant to evoke nostalgia with my viewers that revolve around childhood memories that we may have forgotten with the passing of time. The main subject is my little sister who was my main source of inspiration. In a time where children are growing up faster than they need to, partly because of the internet and social media, I want to capture these moments where my sister is thriving in her vibrant, and imaginative world and emphasize the special and wholesome nature of what it means to be a kid. My photographs are meant to give a blurry or fuzzy effect, alluding to our hazy memory of childhood.  I wanted my photos to be primarily candids, which makes the context less artificial and therefore more easier to relate to. My angles are different in each photo in order to change the perspective of the viewer that helps engage them with the activity that is happening in the photo. I used low angle shots to add drama to the scene. I also purposely obscured my sisters face in some photos to draw attention to the activity she was doing, so that way the viewer can place or see themselves in her position. In each photo, I wanted to keep a dynamic composition so I made sure to move her around the frame and have her in different positions. I also wanted to keep the frame busy, since I wanted to capture the disorderly fun of childhood. Overall, my theme is the enchanting world of childhood that is a sadly fleeting thing. 

For this project, I used my Nikon D5100. I would incorporated techniques such as large depth of field, short depth of field, contrast, color balance and overall composition. I also experimented with different exposure times, depending on the time of day I am shooting at. To achieve the film filter effect of my images, I used both the Adobe Photoshop 2024 and the MacBook Air Photos gallery edit feature. On Adobe photoshop, added a layer of the photo filter Sepia, which is a warmish orange. I edited the Noise/Grain to about 50% to create the blur like effect. I also added a Curve Adjustment layer and made a reverse ‘S’ shape. On the Photos gallery, I lowered the contrast and added a vignette. I reduced the saturation to add the vintage look while bumping up the vibrance to retain the sharpness of the colors.

If I could continue this project, I would love to recreate scenes from famous movies that I watched as a kid. For example, The Parent Trap (1998), Cat in the Hat (2003), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), or Matilda (1996). I would also love to include more of my sister's friends or cousins, to have the atmosphere more lively and vibrant.