jack-of-all-21

[jack-of-all-21]

Also can we just talk for a second about how Brennan is a DM even in everyday life? Like when he was telling the Dirty Laundry couch what it was like being awake for 81 hours and he did his lil wooshes and hand movements I was like “damn so he’s just Like That” and honestly I love that. I bet he’s a fantastic storyteller I wanna sit in a room with him and just listen to him tell the most mundane stories bc as long as he adds his little sound effects and character voices I’ll be entertained. 

[jack-of-all-21]

Hey there don’t mind me just realizing that I am more obsessed with Dropout content than the actual cast members of Dropout because Brennan has told that Milano car crash story several times and nobody else in that room knew what he was talking about apparently

[jack-of-all-21]

I like Tarantino flicks

what is your cishet male trait mine is being a car fan

[jack-of-all-21]

Still of Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War

[jack-of-all-21]

old Pokemon doodles!

[jack-of-all-21]

Me @ six month old who’s fighting sleep

“Hey, I have this secret cure for feeling sleepy that you might wanna try”

“It’s called goING TO SLEEP”

[jack-of-all-21]

imma just drop this here, and back to my grave i go. 

(anyways it Jackaboy about to have action) 

@therealjacksepticeye

[jack-of-all-21]

Have a Nimona walk cycle :3

[jack-of-all-21]

Background 1 for my major animation project of death. The rest of the backgrounds will just be a variation of this. Hopefully I won’t have to draw too many new things. Already sooo behind on this. *diescriesanddiessomemore*

[jack-of-all-21]

Requesting help from the history side of tumblr

I’m writing a scifi/fantasy novel about two siblings who travel through time to stop a warrior who can also travel through time from destroying the Earth in the future. I need help because I want the antagonist to be based off of a real life woman and the first story will be centered around a real life war. 

So I’m looking for 1) real historical wars that 2) involved now famous female soldiers that were 3) betrayed in some way or if not, just killed in battle. The time period I want to set the story in is around any time that swords and shields, etc were used as primary weaponry. 

If anyone could message me or let me know what you know, or sounds like it fits, please let me know! I’d be very grateful!

Thanks! 

[jack-of-all-21]

The linework for the first scene in my animation major! This is gonna take a billion years. Rip

[jack-of-all-21]

Instructions unclear.

controversial writing tip

open a document and start writing

[jack-of-all-21]

A super dumb comic that’s super dumb. Enjoy!

[jack-of-all-21]

I feel like writing a Ready Player One review

So here I go...

Well, spoilers, probably. I mean, I’m talking about the book and the movie and the ending and the overall plot and I’m not trying to be mindful so...there will probably be spoilers.

I really liked this movie actually, and yeah I’ll talk about a lot of personal problems I had with it but I seriously was blown away by it.

Where should I begin? What’s that, did you say “the plot”? I thought so. First off, the story diverges heavily from the book after the explosion at the stacks. I’m not really complaining about this, I expected it actually. Since 1) it’s a movie based on a book, of course it would be changed up a bunch and 2) this particular book would need quite a bit of adapting to make it entertaining to watch. For example, the original scene where Parzival gets his extra life, just playing pac-man for hours on end, would’ve been hard to make visually appealing. The movie was crammed full of story and it felt like things were moving a little too fast honestly. I wish I could’ve seen the movie without knowing much about the book, because I felt like my brain automatically filled in any holes that might’ve confused someone who hadn’t read the book. The movie seemed to be all action and plot moving forwards as quickly as possible, with no room for character development. And as a result, I really didn’t feel anything more than a superficial attachment to any of the characters, and I was just watching it for the action and the effects. Which isn’t bad, per se, but I kind of like good characters when I read a book or watch a movie.

The Characters

Like I said, I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. Because the movie focused so much on shoving in action and plot that it didn’t give me any reason to like the characters. Apart from Daito and Sho(to) (who I’ll talk about in a sec), I liked the characters much better in the book. I knew more about them. Because the movie cut out any development or background on the characters, all of their actions seemed shallow. I could accept that Parzival fell in love with Art3mis so quickly because he’d basically been cyber-stalking her before they’d met for the first time in the story. In the film all we get is a throw away line about him watching her playthroughs. I mean hey, I watch Markiplier, I’m not in love with him. (Well...) He barely mourns his aunt and her boyfriend, he seems shell shocked in one scene then he’s giggling and flirting with Samantha in the next. And yeah, I get his Aunt’s boyfriend was a dick but his aunt seemed to be taking care of him at least, and if anything, he seemed to be the one causing trouble for her. Of course, we didn’t get to actually SEE any of their relationship so we’re left to guess or just forget about it and go with the adventure like he does.

Art3mis was shallow. Her depth from the book was replaced by a cliche “spunky, witty girl” personality, that’s always used to represent the strong young adult female in media. My favorite thing about her was her great speech about how Parzival didn’t love her, he loved the persona that she allowed people online to see. Too bad that was ruined because like two scenes later she and Parzival are making doe eyes at each other and there seems to be no strong difference between her avatar’s persona and her real self. Except for an “ugly” birthmark that Prince Zuko would probably kill to trade for his own. Oh, did I mention that everyone in this movie is gorgeous? Even though they’re supposed to be unappealing shut ins who use their online avatars to represent the self they’d like to present. But no, in Hollywood, being ugly is wearing glasses, and having a birthmark that covers 1/6th of your face. This isn’t just a problem with this movie, it’s with a lot of films.

I personally felt like Aech was a stereotype. I didn’t mind her avatar, a big, bulky ogre type beast, with tech enhancements on his body. I thought that was cool visually. But I didn’t like the “urban” attitude they gave her when the whole point of Aech’s avatar is that she doesn’t want people to be able to tell she’s black or a woman, and they turn her into a typical “black without being actually black” character. The only surprise was that she was a girl. And she was yet another victim of plot-over-characterization, because lots of her motive and history was just cut out. She mentions that her dad called her H, nothing about him wanting a boy. Or her actually living in that postal van because she was rejected by her family for being gay.

I thought that changing Daito and Sho(to) into a Japanese teen and a chinese boy instead of the Japanese blood brothers from the book was actually a good change. Because Daito and Shoto were almost ridiculous stereotypes in the book. They were pretty much the only part of the book I disliked, they felt like two characters written by a weeb who didn’t bother to do any research. I really have no feelings one way or the other that Daito didn’t die, but I was hyped as fuck to see that sick gundam sequence. (I’m a girl who loves mecha, I’m not sorry about it) Sho was pretty cute too, so I’m not mad about him really. Ultimately the biggest problem with the movie’s characters was that you could barely call them that. I did enjoy the interpretations of Halliday himself and Sorrento, and I LOVED Sorrento’s avatar. It was cool seeing how he interpreted himself in that world.

The thing that honestly made up for all the flaws to me, and the reason I enjoyed the film so much, was the fricking visuals. They were AMAZING. I’m sure this movie was like 95% CGI and damn it looked good. I was glued to the screen for every action sequence, and more than once I thought to myself ‘That’s what Steven Spielberg money will do for you.’ The cinematography was breathtaking and the special effects were fantastic. It showed what you can really do when you’re not forced to make CGI look as “real” as possible. That’s really the main reason I enjoyed the film so much, the world was brought to life and though the characters didn’t draw me in much, the spectacle sure was something else.

Small things, I was bummed not to hear the Take On Me song from the trailer, I was actually looking forward to that. I-R0k was...decently humorous. They cut out the scene where he gets rid of his body hair and buys a sex doll, understandable but, would’ve been amusing to see onscreen. Narration, I always hate it, always. I quite liked The Shining scene though, it was engaging and actually pretty scary, and, I dunno, I just really liked the whole sequence. Also Keira was very cute for her one line of dialogue. The movie’s moral was weak, the only reason I see that the real world is better than the virtual world is because Wade now has a girl to touch up on, and Halliday only thought the real world was so great because he could’ve had a girl to touch up on. So...

It’s annoying to hear this movie compared to others with a vaguely similar story. Like just because two stories both take place in a video game world, doesn’t mean they’re the same or that it even makes sense to compare them. This bothers me so much because it just means that it’ll be harder for new premises to be accepted in film and stories, just because they might take place in a similar world as another story. Similar set ups does not make something a copy or any less original.

It’s possible that I’m so impressed with this film because I went into it with pretty low expectations in the first place. It could also be because I found the book to be just mediocre when I first read it, and the movie was a marked improvement. It was Ernest Cline’s first book, and I could definitely tell. So I was surprised that they managed to turn this giant 80’s nostalgia boner into a really fun action flick. Stephen Spielberg’s direction took the movie to a whole other level, and although I expected to hate the CGI avatar thing, I ended up loving it and being blown away by all the visuals. In the end the movie was really fun and enjoyable to sit through, but it was definitely more flash than substance. And that might turn some people off. But I for one enjoyed the flash.

I’d say it’s a 7 maybe 7.5 out of ten in my opinion, and yeah, I’d even go see it again.

[jack-of-all-21]

I’m so weird with musicals

Let’s compare and contrast my experiences with Hamilton and The Greatest Showman as examples.

I discovered both musicals about 4-5 months after they came out and hit their initial popularity. As soon as I found out about them I introduced them to my mom to help her get obsessed with them as well, since we both love musicals. Then I never got the chance to see either show in person, so I pretty much became obsessed with the soundtracks, putting together my own visuals from the music. I found videos of songs from both musicals later and both musicals looked completely different from my imagination. So I continued to just listen to the music and picture my own scenes.

A difference between Hamilton and TGS is that, since Hamilton is pretty completely song, it was easy to get the storyline through just the music. For TGS I resisted as long as I could, then eventually caved and read through the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.

I had an internal struggle with both musicals where I came to terms with the fact that the real life people these musicals were based off of were much worse than portrayed in the shows. Not to make excuses for myself, but I used the time period they were from as a big reason why they were the way they were. And after I was upset for a while (both with myself for liking the musicals, and the creators for “glorifying” less than stellar figures [and in TGS’ case, demonizing an actually stellar figure, which I’m still not completely over]) I learned to enjoy the music for what it was. As someone who wants to be a writer I’ve learned to appreciate art as it is, and not force it to be a representation of what it’s not trying to be. The music still entertains me, and in the end entertainment, not education, was the number one objective of both of these musicals right?

Now let’s talk about how I deal with the songs. For both Hamilton and TGS, I didn’t listen to the full soundtrack right away. Because when I am listening to other genres of music, it’s rare for me to like a band’s entire album, and my playlists consist of songs I’ve picked and chosen out of various albums. So I treat musicals the same way a lot of the time, and I listen to a few songs at first, try them out, and see which I like. I’ll make a playlist of just those select few songs. Then, as I get fatigued of hearing the same songs over and over, I’ll maybe try out one I haven’t heard before. And I’ll fall in love with that song, and then I’ll try another and love it, and it just keeps going, until I’m in love with the entire soundtrack apart from one song, that I dislike for some reason like, it’s too slow or too sappy or (in TGS’ case) too much like pop music. But then I’ll hear it again, maybe even accidentally, and I’ll just think ‘dammit. and now I like the entire soundtrack and I have to take the time to update my playlist’.

So now that I’m in love with the entire musical from start to finish, I’ll get into the fandom. I’ll look through tags on tumblr (of course) and subs on reddit, and different aminos, anything to help find people who are just as fixated as me. I followed a bunch of Hamilton blogs after I first got into it, fanart and fanfiction, and bloggers who posted real facts to compare to the musical. I also just follow some people who become legit friends to me thanks to our common interests. (Lookin’ at you, @lena-lemon ) Of course I’m always in the Unpopular Opinions club whenever I join these fandoms, which I suspect may be because I come in so late and am not swept up with the initial emotional hype that sweeps so many people up on their first viewing, then validates it when they find so many people who agree. And with both musicals came the cast fixation. Because both Hamilton and TGS have the purest actors as cast members period. Then I’ll start writing (or drawing, now that I’ve started drawing) my own things for the musicals. And I listen to the soundtrack 24/7 while I’m doing all of this.

Fatigue starts to happen soon, but not with the fandom, typically with the music. This is just me wanting to listen to the songs less, and skipping the songs more. But this is just like giving the soundtrack some healthy breathing room, and the songs get added to my other playlists, so once in a while, as I’m listening to music, a song from the soundtrack will come on, and I can enjoy it again. I’m just not listening to the soundtrack and nothing but the soundtrack any longer. The phases are almost always exactly in that order too.

I don’t know how to end long posts like this so...thanks for reading.

[jack-of-all-21]

How Failsafe Plays with Our Expectations

Spoilers, for the episode of season one Young Justice, called Failsafe, for anyone here who’s a first time watcher. But the wait for season three is kind of getting boring, and I like over-analyzing cartoons aimed at audiences half a decade younger than me, as it happens. I think a reason that Failsafe’s big twist ending is so shocking is because they hint at it pretty subtly (a good twist is one you don’t notice until it’s revealed, but then realize you could’ve put all the pieces together and figured out yourself). And even though the twist is hinted at, I also think that the writers steer you away from figuring out what’s going on too soon by setting up your expectations and making you believe that this is the type of episode you’ve seen before. When you think you know what’s going to happen, they pull the rug out from under you. (Or, stab their hand right through it? ...I was going for twist-ending-relevant joke.) When going back through the episode, right off the bat the first thing I notice is how quickly it’s paced, how fast everything is moving. When the members of the justice league get disintegrated, the camera barely stays on the shot for a few seconds before moving on to some other scene. The music doesn’t change to anything sadder or more dramatic than typical fight scene music, and the characters reactions are also all pretty muted. It’s like, not only are the characters not grieving the presumed deaths of these heroes, but the show is telling the audience not to grieve either. But, it’s a cartoon aimed at a younger audience, PLUS these are major players of the DC Universe, of course the deaths won’t be permanent. That’s what I thought, anyways. And that prompted me to start wondering what was really going on here. Then the episode throws in its red herring. About halfway through the episode, right around when a solution for the main problem would be presenting itself in a normal episode, the team (well what’s left of it at this point) “discovers” that the disintegration beam that’s been hitting everyone is in fact a teleporter. People aren’t dying, they’re just being transported inside the alien ship. For the reasons I said before, we ever expected the deaths of the JL to be permanent, and if the writers had tried to pull a “no no, they really are dead!!” Kind of thing, I would’ve stopped believing the episode and maybe even figure out that there’s some kind of twist ending about to happen. Instead, we’re given this false, but satisfying piece of information that preps us for a final big battle where the heroes get everyone back, and save the day. We think that the main conflict is as good as resolved. The episode sets us up to expect typical story progression; a bit paint-by-numbers, with a twist rendered lackluster thanks to the common impermanence surrounding deaths in comic based entertainment. And even when Robin does reveal that the alien beam is a murder weapon, even though I personally didn’t believe that was true, I still didn’t know what the fuck was going on. There was no time to figure it out either, because there’s an action scene immediately after the reveal, to distract you, and on top of that there’s only like five minutes left in the episode. Another thing that makes the twist in Failsafe work so well is that the episode in general kinda destroys basic story structure. A story (more or less. Going off what I remember from that screenwriting book I haven’t studied in months) goes Intro —> Turning Point —> Rising Action —> Climax —> Falling Action —> Resolution. But this episode seems to give us a huge climax, like 30-45 seconds of falling action (what I consider Batman and Manhunter’s conversation at the end), and no real resolution. In my opinion, this is actually a good thing because it hits you hard and then ends abruptly, leaving you to quietly think about what just happened instead of the rest of the episode just having the characters talk about it for a while. I consider the next episode, Disordered, to be kind of like the resolution to this Failsafe. It gets a lot more time to explore the emotions of the whole team after the experience and each of their coping methods, and gives great character development foreshadowing (but, I’ve already written about that). This seems like an abrupt end but, I dunno what else to say, so. Failsafe isn’t really one of my favorite episodes, but I do think that it and Disordered are both really solid and well made episodes of tv (in general, not just the animated stuff) and so, there are my reasons why.

[jack-of-all-21]

Drawing manga covers PT. 1/?

From chapter four of Fullmetal Alchemist, Battle on the Train

Edward Elric uh…studying