#I actually wanted to practice drawing Roger Rabbit stuff

[howlingaround]

Alternative Cut for the ending scene with more bleeping

[nonbinarycharmybee]

thinking about sonic actor au again this time in the slightly kayfabish world of who framed roger rabbit/ animaniacs/ wreck-it ralph so. here's how i imagine all the sonics exist in that world.

- first of all: a cartoon character is either born from a drawing or like...regular birth from other cartoon characters

- characters born from drawings are pretty much fully adult from the beginning, have functional working knowledge about the world from the start, if they were designed as a child character they do age slowly but once they reach a certain age they're practically immortal. think the big name cartoon characters, like mickey mouse or bugs bunny.

- they're only a small percent though, regular-born cartoon characters are a lot more common. some of them are actors, most of them just live regular lives.

- The original Sonic was drawn in the 90s, acted in pretty much every game and cartoon, and then grew up into Modern Sonic.

- When the game developers wanted to remake Classic Sonic for Generations and other stuff, they simply drew up a new character. That's why modern-era Classic Sonic and Actual 90s Sonic are so different, it's because they are different people.

- The Sonic Boom games and tv show are simply played by the modern actors.

- Movie Sonic is actually a regular-born cartoon hedgehog who grew up admiring OG Sonic and was absolutely thrilled to be cast as him in the movie. (IRL, his name is Nicky and he has to die his quills for the role.)

- in general, if the characters originated in the games they're probably drawn, if they're "canon foreigners" like sticks or sonia they're probably played by actors

[whumpster-fire]

Extremely Hot His Dark Materials Take:

The conventional wisdom that daemons’ settled forms represent who you truly are as a person and are a unique, symbolic representation of it is what’s said in-universe but it isn’t true, or at the very least isn’t the whole truth. IDC what Philip Pullman’s said is actually canon, stuff like “Servants usually have dog demons because they have a submissive/servile nature” is really not plausible fite me.

Animal symbolism is a social construct and is not universal among cultures, and just like the alethiometer symbols, an animal species can have many meanings. As a result, for any one person there are usually many species which are a “valid” representation of their soul, and which one their daemon actually settles as is not set in stone from birth. Daemons don’t consciously choose their settled form - and humans certainly don’t - but it reflects a variety of influences, including symbolic “nature” but also cultural influences, social pressures, what animals the daemon actually knows about, the nature of the relationship between the human and daemon, and what forms are physically comfortable or practical. But the common uniting factor in all of those is that a daemon’s form reflects what you want and need as much as what you are. Not superficial wants, but deep deep psychological needs and what’s important to you. And sometimes fears as well.

Factor #1: Societal Bias

Strong cultural predispositions toward settled form, combined with form stereotyping. I think it was said in the books that “most servants had dog daemons because deep down they wanted to be told what to do.” Think about this: is this likely to be true? Given that people generally wind up in jobs by luck of the draw and by what’s available, and most people even in the most socially mobile modern societies usually don’t end up in their “true calling,” and in Lyra’s world your occupation seems to very often be determined by your birth. Do you really think all the kids like Roger Parslow, who’s working as a kitchen boy because his aunt who was a servant at Jordan College raised him, are naturally subservient? Well, is everyone who works in a service industry job IRL naturally subservient? Hell no! However, this is a very, very convenient lie for a classist society that teaches people that they were born into a “station” in society to tell. If your daemon settles as a dog, obviously you were meant to be a servant all along, and you and your daemon spending your entire childhood being told that because this is the station you’re being born and raised into your daemon should be a dog or some other “appropriate” form and couldn’t possibly cause them to be biased towards canine forms by this.

But if a daemon takes a form that’s obviously unfit for their station, clearly your true calling is elsewhere and it was never truly meant to be. It’s hard to falsify as long as most daemons are settling in “expected” forms. And most do, at least to an extent. A daemon’s form is influenced by drives and desires, and while most people don’t necessarily want to be bossed around and told what to do, most people do want to fit in.

And having fairly broad categories of “expected” can help that, because that gives room for daemons to find a form within that category that genuinely fits their nature. Someone extremely independent and strong-willed but growing up always expected to be a servant might end up with a husky daemon. Someone with a leading (or even controlling) personality might have a herding breed. The same goes for Gyptians and Witches being expected to usually have bird daemons.

On the other hand people with certain daemon forms might also be actively recruited for certain jobs, based on both symbolism and the physical abilities of that form - e.g. the Tartar mercenaries and other soldiers seem to almost all have wolf daemons. These may be very common in their culture to begin with, and then there’s further selection based on the symbolism of “You’re a wolf, you’re powerful, noble, and a natural killer but you’re a loyal pack animal, you’d make a great soldier.” But then in addition to that, because of the no touching rules, people in jobs where they fight other people are at an advantage if their daemon can fight other daemons.

Factor #2: Age

Settling age is... around early-to-mid puberty it seems like. I’ve seen speculation that it would be later in more modern societies as the age of maturity drifts over, but it seems like 12-14 is fairly common. But brain development continues until around 25. Like... seriously. Daemons are settling when their humans would be middle-schoolers in our world. People mature and change a huge amount in that decade of “settled but not fully mature.” Unless daemons can presciently predict how they’ll change over time - or if the soul’s nature is fixed and people tend to change in away that approaches that over time - your daemon’s form may be based on what you were like at settling age.

Factor #3: Knowledge and Familiarity

His Dark Materials is mostly based in Europe / Northern Eurasia, and the vast, vast majority of the settled daemon forms in the novels are native to that region. Off the top of my head the exceptions are Stelmaria (a snow leopard, native to the Himalayas but that’s still an animal she and Lord Asriel could have encountered / read about as a child), Mrs. Coulter’s daemon (a monkey, I don’t think we’re ever told what species. Not native to Europe but again Marisa had the resources to travel, read about exotic species, visit zoos, etc and everything about them is weird, IIRC the African soldiers in Amber Spyglass had various african daemon forms (so, where they’re actually from), and Hester. Hester’s the most important because while she took the form of an arctic hare, which is native to North America where Lee’s from, her form is native to a completely different part of North America, that she and Lee probably wouldn’t have been familiar with, and it took years for anyone including her to even notice.

This suggests daemons may be able to take forms that are unknown to them, but we never see a raccoon or an oppossum or a bobcat or some australian animal as a daemon as far as I know, so my best guess is that they had some secondhand knowledge of the arctic and had at least seen what an Arctic Hare looked like but forgot how to tell one apart from a jackrabbit, Hester had an unconscious longing for the North that neither of them were aware of, and she had a strong and possibly less-unconscious desire to get the hell out of Texas at sometime around settling age. And they assumed she was a jackrabbit because daemons usually don’t take forms they’re not familiar with.

Factor #4: Physical Preference

A daemon is not a shadow or a heraldic crest - they’re not just an insubstantial symbolic reflection. A daemon is an integral part of a person’s being, and they are one, but at the same time the daemon are a living, breathing creature even if their physical body is unstable. One soul, two bodies, two minds, two personalities. Their form subjects them to some - although not all - of the physical abilities and limitations that animal would have, and the same sensations.

Again, a daemon’s form is often influenced by what’s important to them, and to the pair. Most daemons take on a huge number of forms throughout childhood, and there are some things about those forms that are important to them. For some daemons the freedom of movement of flight is a fun, childish thing to play around with, and perhaps tactically useful, but it isn’t torture to give it up. For others, flight and the freedom it represents are their very heart and to be bound to a grounded form forever would be unbearable. Some can’t give up the ability to take small forms that can hide and go unnoticed, but some hate the vulnerability and helplessness of small size and could never be happy in a form that can’t walk alongside their human without fear of being kicked or stepped on. Some can’t give up the joy of swimming, or climbing, and for some their humans can’t. The daemon of someone who is a mountaineer and climber in their soul won’t be a snapping turtle. And... this is complicated, because part of it’s the human’s nature, but part of it is tied up in experiences which the human can feel too, and that are important to them, but they don’t experience in quite the same way.

Sometimes it’s just too convenient. Witches’ daemons are nearly always birds because witches spend much of their time in the air and can separate from their daemons, and only with flight of their own can a daemon take advantage of this power; in a flightless form they would take far longer to travel any distance, and their witches would have to land every time they separated or reunited. Another animal, like a fox or a mink or a rabbit, might fit with a witch’s nature too, but a witch’s daemon will become a hawk or a heron or a dove instead.

And sometimes a certain from is just comfortable and it just feels right even though the symbolism might not fit the stereotypes.

Factor #5: Human-Daemon Relationships

This is something I talked about a bit in my post about autism and daemons: the form a daemon settles as is often affected by the nature of their relationship with their human.

First of all: barring severe internal conflict or mental illness, while a daemon’s settled form is not chosen by the human and does not follow their whims, they don’t take a form that makes their shared life inconvenient and miserable. Out of how many sailors, John Faa and Farder Corram knew what, one guy with a dolphin daemon? Usually sailors’ daemons would be seabirds or otters, or animals like cats and rats that aren’t technically aquatic but are well-adapted to living on a boat. Does this mean that the sea isn’t their true love? No: it means no matter how much you love the sea being trapped on a ship for their entire life (and not even the entire ship: how high in the rigging can you climb without going too far from your daemon who can’t leave the water?) sucks and is actively dangerous. Imagine your ship is wrecked and your daemon carries you to shore through the storm (because humans die of hypothermia if left in the water too long in many parts of the oceans)... except you’re literally unable to get out of reach of the crashing waves that will drown you, sweep you away, or batter you to death, without dragging your daemon up the beach and then they’re stranding and dying, and you can’t go get fresh water which your body needs because your soul is an anchor binding you to the water. How many things that are a sailor’s job are you unable to do because you can’t go more than like ten yards from water deep enough to swim in?

Daemons do not consciously choose their forms, but their subconscious is not stupid. Taking a form like a dolphin doesn’t mean the daemon is symbolically expressing their nature, it means the human is denying it to the point where their own daemon is afraid of being torn away from it and cannot trust their human. But again, this event is happening at middle-school age, so what’s likely happening is something like a 14-year-old cabin boy falling in love with a girl in town and wanting to marry her and move inland and abandon the sea forever, and his daemon being horrified by the idea and wanting to make sure it can. not. happen. ever. And then both of their lives are ruined. Meanwhile the other cabin boy on the boat had a non-dysfunctional relationship with his daemon, who settled as a seagull and trusts that when he goes to visit family a little ways inland for a couple days it won’t be permanent.

Anyway: disregarding dysfunctional people like Mrs. Coulter, some humans and daemons are more physically affectionate with their counterparts than others, and in different ways.

Some pairs are happy spending most of their time at the edge of their not-painful range. Some pairs are perfectly comfortable with the daemon taking a tiny form and hiding in their human’s coat pocket most of the time and sneaking around the rest, and with the daemon hardly ever speaking to other humans, and that closeness and the moments of being held in the palm of their human’s hand and being stroked gently with one or two fingers is perfect for them. Some pairs are content with the distance a form like a bird of prey imposes, where the daemon must perch near their human because their claws would injure them if they landed on their shoulder or arm without protective clothing.

But many people and daemons are more “touchy” with each other, for whom the physical nature of the bond between human and daemon cannot possibly be given up. Some daemons settle in the forms they took to fly, or to hide, or spy, or fight, but many settle in the forms they took to rest, to soothe and comfort, to lick wounds and let their fur or feathers be stroked, to share body heat, and sometimes to help hold their humans upright or drag them to safety. Some pairs are content with the daemon sleeping on windowsills or perched on bedposts or on nightstands, or under beds or at the feet of them, but some curl up under the covers together whenever they can.

In less poetic terms, daemons settling in fluffy, huggable forms because they and their humans have a deep-seated need to cuddle with each other is just as valid as daemons settling as birds because they need the freedom of flight.

This is often the case for children whose need for touch is not met properly by others, or those for whom it is too much, or it cannot be trusted. Parents, friends, and lovers aren’t always there, but they are always there for each other. But there’s not always trauma or neglect involved, and it’s not always people who have few or no close and intimate bounds outside themselves. Plenty of content, well-adjusted people still have relationships like this with their daemons because we’re human beings and touch is important to us, and it doesn’t really matter if you share a soul.

[clownmoontoon]

Been thinking of watching darkwing duck because it seems cool from the posts I've seen on your blog but I was wondering something, is he an actual hero or an actor? I only know very little from the ducktales reboot and I think the reboot implied it was all a show but I was wondering if that's true or not :P

Y ES ITS SO GOOD SDLKJKLD I HIGHLY UNDERESTIMATED THIS SHOW AND ITS CHARACTERS AND IM EATING ALL MY DUCK HATER WORDS THIS SHOW IS GREAT!!!!

is he an actual hero? YES!!! DEBATABLE??? ID SAY HES MORALLY GRAY SDLKKJLD BUT HE LOVES IT WHEN PPL THINK HES A HERO he rlly wants to be mysterious also

(( idiot .. basard man...i love hi m, look at that face,, gOD ))

is he an actor? NO!! THIS IS HIS LIFE its kinda a parody of batman (darkwing) and gotham (st. canard) but with toons (as in roger rabbit-esque shenanigans)

hes got his own joker, poison ivy and various other familiar-ish, villain-y toons that have ZERO of the sex appeal of their inspirations, and ALL of the insanity and anxiety ITS GREAT batman WISHES his show was as entertaining as darkwing’s

(( idiot basard man... men, part two electric (and water and grass and clown, ykno the 4 main pokemon types) boogaloo ))

in fact id go as far as saying all the main characters (villains included) are morally gray save for gizmo duck (hes just 100% a gold hearted hero) and negaduck (black hearted asshole with a chainsaw..i love hIM)

the ducktales reboot wanted darkwing to make sense in the world they set up and they made the exceptionally creative ITS A TV SHOW IN THIS UNIVERSE idea to bring it in without having to redo everything

(( meme courtesy of @trashiny-draws <3 ))

i havent seen the new ducktales yet (or the old one THEYRE BOTH ON MY LIST) howeVER a friend showed me the NEGA TWIST ep and from what i can tell ducktales 2017 has the characters written a bit more realistically and less “toony” than the original series 

while darkwing (original) is like FULL TOON 

its def not for everyone bUT IF UR A FAN (LIKE ME) OF MORALLY GRAY CHAOTIC BASTARDS (SOME WITH RLLY GOOD HEARTS) THIS SHOW MIGHT BE RIGHT UP UR ALLEY

lmao me recommending shows like 

also also THE FOUND FAMILY??? that was SEVERELY MISSING from the reboot eps and its prACTICALLY MY FAVE THING in the original series, i understand its kinda hard to fit in but im hoping with the actual darkwing reboot they bring that in ;; 

like yeah its a batman parody but with everything batman severely lacks (just my opinion pls dont @ me batman fans SDLKJKLD), instead of going back to his ~mansion~ when hes in civilian clothes, darkwing goes to a regular house to be a “regular” SINGLE dad with his adopted daughter and live in husband sidekick

ALSO P SURE HE CREATED HIS CIVILIAN IDENTITY AND BOUGHT A HOUSE JUST SO HE COULD ADOPT HER, HE ADORES HER AND EVERY TIME HE GOES DAD WITH HER IM LIKE 

I DEFY U TO WATCH THE PILOT AND NOT GO SOF FOR THESE TWO IVE NEVER SEEN A RELATIONSHIP LIKE THERES IN ANYTHING AND ITS SUCH A GREAT TROPE 

“chaotic bastard adopts chaotic child no one wants bc this is the ONE KID he is like oh no i love her, my child now ALSO HES A SUPER HERO”

ASDLJKkljd anYWAYS YA I RECOMMEND IT GO WATCH DARKWING DUCK

DID I MENTION SHORT KING RIGHTS???

also this show is EXTREMELY gay coded like dont @ me but CMON

this reminds me of how i thought the fandom was just excited about ships w the yakuza games but surely none of the stuff i saw in fan art actually happened in canon bUT NO THEY ARE JUST RLLY LIKE THIS AND ITS BEEN LIKE THIS W THE DARKWING ART IVE SEEN im like “oh thats funny and rlly gay” AND THEN IT TURNS OUT TO BE FAN ART OF AN ACTUAL SCENE SLKDJLKD

THIS POST LONG AF ALREADY SO ILL JUST END IT SAYING THAT IF U GONNA WATCH U SHOULD WATCH THE PRODUCTION ORDER!! not the order it aired on tv!! 

u can find the production order on the darkwing wiki! <3

me: DARKWING > BATMAN

batman fans:

[sweeetmonstrosity]

Honeybee’s and Peonies

Summary:  In which your assumptions hurt you more than they help you.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader

Warnings: None.

Square(s) Filled: Mutual Pining

Word Count: 2473

Link: AO3

A/N: This here fills a square on my @star-spangled-bingo card and is for @bvcks  4.2k writing challenge - prompt was “Why are you in my room?” + “I don’t really know.” + “I don’t mind.” 

As always, any feedback is appreciated. xx

“You need to just tell him, Y/N. He is kind of an idiot when it comes to this type of stuff – actually, you both are.” Rolling your eyes, you decided to ignore Tasha and keep focusing on your post workout stretches. Tasha huffs out when you stay silent and puts pressure on a nerve in your shoulder until you turn to her.

“Tash, I really don’t know why you keep pushing this. He is my friend, okay?” Your voice began sounding distressed. “You were there to witness him asking out Sharon anyways, so can’t you just let it go, please?”

Natasha grabbed your shoulders and looked right into your eyes making sure you understood her clearly. “No. I can’t let it go because it’s obvious to everyone on the team about your feelings for each other. You both are just too stupid to see it.” She narrowed her eyes when you tried pulling away from her grip. “Go tell him, now, Y/N.”

Finally pulling out of her grip you shake your head and begin walking away. Pausing at the door to leave the training room, you look over your shoulder and see Tasha debating whether she should drag you to Steve’s room or take matters into her own hands and tell him herself. Pointing a finger at her you call out, “I know what you’re thinking Tasha and there’s nothing to tell, Tasha, so leave it alone.” You don’t give her time to answer as you quickly exit and head to your room for a shower.

You had a feeling it was obvious to everyone that you had feelings for Steve, considering all the small comments they would make concerning the two of you. You had a small bit of hope that you weren’t completely obvious about it – but the one thing you knew for sure – was they didn’t know how deep those feelings went for him.

Everything with Steve came easily and comfortably. Conversations came naturally – you didn’t have to try and force anything with him. It was always like you had known him for your entire life. You liked how he smiled wider than usual when you called him Grant instead of Steve and how he made sure to greet everyone that worked at the compound, and how he deeply entranced he gets when he’s drawing something. You adored the way he scrunched his nose slightly when he didn’t understand something fully or Peter quoted a meme he’d seen. How he would get that small furrow and look to you or Sam when he was confused about something, and how his cheeks and neck would gain a light pink tint when he figured out something was a sexual innuendo. Everything about him made pieces of you light up like fireworks.

Which is why you were despising the fact you were sitting alone in your room at the compound alone while everyone else was out at dinner. Sam and Bucky mentioned Sharon was also coming to dinner – so you opted out of being around Steve and her.  You weren’t your best self when you were around them together. You had a knack for unknowingly putting down her accomplishments or found yourself trying to dig deep into her mind to find any insecurities to exploit. You didn’t want to be that person and put other women down rather than cheer them on, so you did the only other thing you could which was not putting yourself in that situation at all.

Sharon is a lovely woman, there are no bad feelings involved when it comes to your relationship with her. If anything, it’s just the case of the little green-eyed monster that’s the cause of a small rift between the two of you. Before you accepted you had feelings for the Captain, you got along pretty well with her. Not that you’d ever admit you had those feelings to Natasha. You have absolutely nothing against her or anything bad to say about her. She is perfect. Perfect for SHIELD, for the team, for Grant.

Maybe, that was what helped cause the rift. The fact that she is the perfect person for everything you were currently doing with the Avengers. You assume Fury has more trust in her than he does in you, and she previously helped Steve along with saving his life. She can take your spot in a heartbeat, it wasn’t likely since Fury has her on another job – so she can’t take your place until that one is done. On top of having Fury on her side, she is perfect for the guy you have been pining after for almost two years.

Before you can continue down the rabbit hole of your emotions, there is a bang outside in the hallway, a mumbled curse, then suddenly someone has stumbled through the door and is now standing in front of your bed.

You furrow your brows and look up at Steve asking yourself, ‘Shouldn’t he be at dinner right now?’ Steve suddenly clears his throat and your head snaps back up to him. You hide your shaky hands under the blanket and breathe out slowly before quietly questioning, “Grant, why are you in my room?”

He looked at you curled up in the middle of your bed - frowning when he noticed you were shrinking into yourself. “I don’t really know.” He mumbles, glancing around the room with a frown before slowly walking to sit next your shrinking form. You watch him closely and slowly nod your head, “I don’t mind,” you clear your throat as you move to the other side of the bed – giving him way more space than needed. “I just thought, uh – aren’t you supposed to be at dinner with everyone right now?” you added, nervously.

Steve sits down and nods before he scratches the back of his head and looks around the room, again. “Uh, you didn’t come to dinner and I uh, I wanted to come check on you – make sure you’re okay and everything is fine.” The intensity of his voice got stronger as he kept talking.

“Yeah Stevie, I’m fine. Everything is good.” Twisting your fingers is helping you stay distracted from looking up at him.

“Really? If everything is good and you are completely fine, then tell me, Y/N – tell me why you have been distancing yourself from me for the past two months?” he demands, turning your head to face him.

You feel your body stiffen and you look at him with wide-eyes. “Don’t you lie to me, Y/N. I want the truth of why you have been hiding away in this room lately. Did someone on the team do something to hurt you? Tell me, doll, please.” The pleading in his voice – in his eyes – pierces your heart little by little and you know you can’t hurt him like this. If giving him a reason will ease his worries, then it’s what you will do.

“Steve – Grant, being around all you couples makes me feel… different. I’m not myself when I’m hanging around with you guys. I am a lonely wheel trying to keep up with a diesel going down the highway. So, I decided to give you all time to be together without feeling sorry for me being the lonely wheel.” you answer honestly.

It looks as if he realizes something while you are talking – like he is understanding your unsaid words. Smiling softly at him you mumble out, “You can go ahead back to your date with Sharon and the rest of the couples. I’m just gonna go get a glass of water and then have an early night, okay? Go, have fun Stevie, m’fine – promise.” Moving out from under the blankets you halt dead in your tracks when he practically sprints past you to your closet.

You stay frozen in place for a few minutes before you find a sliver of your voice and cautiously call out, “Grant? What the hell are you doing in my closet? You are supposed to be leaving.”

Hearing a grunt, you take a step forward to glance inside but stop again when you hear him stomping to the closet door. He holds out a dress to you while grumbling out, “You really need to clean out your closet, winter coats don’t need to go by your evening dresses. I knocked some things off hangers but we will fix that later.”

“Steven Grant, who the hell do you think you are going through a woman’s closet?!” You smack his hand that’s holding the dress he chose. “There isn’t a reason to put that on because I’m not going anywhere!” Your voice crisp as you cross your arms over your chest.

Steve frowns at you and the small almost unnoticeable furrow in his brow lets you know he is slightly confused on something you said or did. Watching him closely, you notice when he scans your body from head to toe – like he’s trying to figure out what’s made you act like this towards him. He scans your body at least three times before you see his eyes light up and he’s laying the dress down over the back of a chair.

Shrugging, Steve casually sits back on your bed and begins to toe off his shoes. “Fine,” he said airily, “If you don’t want to go to the dinner with everyone, Y/N, then I’m not going either. I’m going to stay here with you.”

You open and close your mouth – with no sounds coming out – for what feels like years before finally finding your voice again. “You aren’t going to skip dinner with your girlfriend Steve, stop joking around and go before they eat without you. I told you m’fine, Grant. Go, have fun!” Grabbing the dress, you move to place back in your closet when you hear Steve snicker for a second before he tries to cover it up. Turning back, slowly – you raise an eyebrow, “Something funny, Grant?” you question haughtily.

“No Y/N,” he lets another snicker slip through his lips again and slaps a hand over his mouth before any more can come out. “Not really. Just the fact that you think Sharon is my girlfriend. Which she isn’t – by the way. She’s just a friend, doll.” Steve lets his snickers die on his tongue when something clicks in his head. “Is that why you put the distance between us? Because you thought I was dating Peggy’s niece? Honestly, Y/N? That’s why all this happened?”

Completely at a loss for words, you just nod your head slowly.

“Doll, I’m not dating Sharon. The team and I have been spending more time with her these past couple month because she helped a lot of us and now, she’s leaving.” Steve states gently.

Wide-eyes staring up at the bright blue super soldiers – you breathe out, “What do you mean she’s leaving?” Still not grasping fully what he’s said you begin to frantically mumble, “She can’t leave. You guys are dating, that would be hard on your relationship. How would you go on dates? Or give her gifts? Or-.”

A finger is gently placed over your mouth to stop your rambling and Steve is smiling down at you. “There is no need for all that, Y/N. I’m not dating Sharon, there’s no relationship – we are just friends.” He shrugs and moves his hand to cup your neck. “But there is a gal. She is better than Natasha at fighting, she can definitely out-shoot Clint and Bucky in anything. She may not be stronger than Hulk, but she can match his strength and she has the brains to challenge both Bruce and Tony. My gal can out run me any day of the week without breaking a sweat and she can keep up with everyone on the witty comments, she’s almost as good as Sam.”

As you listen to him go on and on about this other girl – you realize you’ve heard all these things before. Everything this star-spangled doofus is saying has been said to you – or about you – by the team. But even then, you still can’t understand what he’s saying.

You pick your head up when you feel him flex his fingers on the side of your neck and he softly whispers, “You’re goin’ to miss the best part doll if you keep blanking out on me.” He moves his hand to cup your cheek and leans his mouth closer to your ear. “She was the first agent I actually trusted full-stop and I’ve been in love with her since she was willingly picking peonies out of a field that had honeybee’s inside because they ‘smelled sweeter than the others.’”

“Steven Grant Rogers, stop it. You stop talking right now. This doesn’t make sense!” You hope your voice would sound as confident and intense, but it came out croaky instead.

He ignores your little outburst and continues whispering in your ear, “You want me to tell you her name, or have you figured it out yet?” Steve pulls his head back to look directly in your eyes and gives you the smile you adore – patiently waiting for you to catch up with all he’s said.

“You – Grant, you can’t – what?”

Nodding his head, still holding your eyes and heart captive with his gaze he breathes out, “Her name is Y/N Y/L/N, she is my best gal, and I’ve been in love with you for a while now doll.” Steve pauses – for dramatic effect or to let it sink in for a moment – then leans down to softly brush his lips against yours. Leaning his head against yours, he lets out a relieved breath when you pull away only to wrap your arms tightly around his neck while muttering, “I’m going to kill Tasha if she told you about my feelings for you.”

Wrapping his arms around your waist he chuckles lowly and shakes his head. “She may have mentioned something, doll, but you just confirmed those feelings just now.” Steve walks back and sits on the edge of the bed pulling you into his lap – smiling cheekily at you. “It’s been only you for me, doll. Since the beginning, it’s always been you.”

By the time the rest of the team comes back, you and Steve are laying together in the movie room having your first official date. Nat peaks in and smirks when she sees you curled up in his lap. Smirking she closes the door and starts the trek to her room while muttering, “Now that is how you put two idiots out of their misery of pining.”

[jeanjauthor]

I like promoting artists and art as well as the writing stuff...and this is awesome. Flat-out awesome.

The people who put this movie together are artists.  They are art historians (yes, comic books have/need art historians!) and art physicists (you try keeping all those buildings in perspectives at different angles!), and art fans (not fanboys, that’s a perjurative these days) who genuinely care about trying to translate the feel of comic books into an animation style.

I’ve told y’all before that books and movies are different. You can do things in a novel that you cannot do in a movie.  You can do things in a movie that you cannot do in a novel.  But so are comic books.  They’re not novels. They’re not movies. They’re not static art--yes, I know the art just sits there on the page and doesn’t move, but the story inside the comic book, or the graphic novel, etc, etc, that is not static.

Everything you see being done in the clip was a deliberate choice made to evoke a specific experience and/or feeling in the viewer.

I’m thrilled they won the Best Animated Movie Oscar, and I really do think this movie will stand the test of time through the ages for its outstanding animation.

Of course, you can take that with a pinch of salt, because I feel Tron (the original) is still an outstanding example of computer animation...but then I remember the earliest days of computer images, so that’s my benchmark, and for its time, Tron was frikkin’ groundbreaking, and we wouldn’t have Into the Spider-Verse, or Frozen, or Aladdin or Jurassic Park or the Transformers movies--say what you will about any of these, but you’d be lying if you don’t admit Tron paved the way--not because it was the first movie to use computer-generated images (it wasn’t), but because it was the first big movie to popularize it, wowing the audiences of the day.

But honestly, it isn’t the best films that should be lauded for how they stand the test of time, but the first of the best films. Because they paved the way for better things to come.  If you look back at Star Wars (ep IV, A New Hope), it, um...it’s a 1970s film. I love it, and it was frikkin’ groundbreaking in so many ways...but the latest ones do have the higher production quality, if you tried to compare it against them.

However, if you compare it against its contemporaries, it’s no wonder it captured audiences worldwide (and spawned a lot of mediocre to downright craptastic imitators, before finally getting better stuff out there).  It blew a lot of movies right out of the water with how imaginative and creative it was.  Just like Tron did, and--arguably--just like Christopher Reeves’ Superman rewrote the book on superhero movies...even if they really didn’t get going again on that until over 20 years later when the tech to do superhero-y things on screen in a way that audiences could believe started to come true, via Iron Man, kicking off the MCU. (It was because of films like Tron and the Star Wars & Jurassic Park franchises, etc, etc, etc, that all of this became possible.)

And yes, the original Jurassic Park blew everyone out of the water with its CGI dinosaurs, too.  That’s what groundbreaking films do.  I remember hearing the “whooaah!!”s from the audience when we all first saw, along with the main characters in the Jeep, all those brontosaurs, stegosaurues, etc, in the pasture/grasslands. (Do not assume I know perfectly what they were called, I’m talking about the audience reaction, not the nitpicky details of which dinosaurs were in the movie.)  I looked quickly to either side and saw dozens of dropped jaws just like mine.  ...The latest movie in that franchise blows the first one out of the water, but there had to be a first one.

Into the Spider-Verse is one of those films.  It’s blowing everything out of the water.  And I do honestly hope we can look back on it and have the luxury of being able to roll our eyes...but I fear it’s going to be more like Tron and Superman than Star Wars or Jurassic Park.  That it might take decades to get anything close to this again...unless we support movies like this.  Unless we support artists, unless we support writers, unless we support...with money...studio producers, executives, etc...well, they love money.  So they’re going to try more of the things that they think people will continue to buy.

It’s worked for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after all.

...And yes, we were all feeling super bummed at the end of Infinity War.  But you know what?

We were all feeilng bummed at the end of Empire Strikes Back too, back in the mid 1980s.  We just didn’t have social media (outside of chatting & panels at conventions, and covertly distributed fan’zines, the pre-internet version of fanfic archives) to share and find healing in in our mutual defeated-in-the-middle-of-the-trilogy-syndrome/misery.

The Lord of the Rings had something of this, as did The Hobbit...but those stories we already knew weren’t always happy stories.  The books have been out so long that all the tropes are heavily embedded in our cultural mythos, even if only periphrally (since actually not all that many people have managed to wade through the books; Tolkienn’s writing isn’t exactly reader-friendly to the 21st century audience). 

But things like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which stated from the onset it wouldn’t be following any of the comic book plots exactly?  We’re venturing into the parts of the maps that say “here be dragons” and we aren’t talking Smaug.  He’s a known dragon.  We’re talking dragons we haven’t even met yet. (How to Train Your Dragon was another groundbreaking film in how it treated dragons, btw.)

So...long story short:  Artists, do what you gotta do.  Do what you want to do, too.  And practice. Like, LOTS.  Because they employed 177 animators at one point on the Spider-Verse film, as opposed to just 27 for Toy Story (another ground-breaker, fully animated full-length feature film in 3D computer graphics animation). 

One day, some of you are going to create something groundbreaking, either solo (think Matt Groening and The Simpsons, and yes, it was groundbreaking when it first aired, because it wasn’t The Flintstones...which was groundbreaking all on its own, but decades between them, like Superman versus Iron Man), or in a massive group, like what Into the Spider-Verse needed.

But don’t think those of you who don’t create something groundbreaking aren’t doing worthwhile work, either.  There were a lot of animation-inclusive films that were awesome, great, inspiring, intriguing, frustrating, aaaalmost made it, etc, in between the groundbreaking ones and the outstanding ones. Who Framed Roger Rabbit broke trail for Space Jam, which while not exactly highbrow cinema was still highly popular, for example.

The point is that usually people also enjoy the stuff that follows, even when it isn’t groundbreaking.  The groundbreaking stuff gets them to search for other, similar stuff...and similar stuff to that, and on and on.  And somewhere in there, they’ll find you.

And for that viewer, that reader, that audience?  You just might be groundbreaking on a personal level to them.

Take the creator of the webcomic Love & Capes.  Superhero fiction, yup.  Cartoonish “easily drawn” style, yep. Romance in the storyline, sure.  But this was a comic book storyline that followed the romance far more than the superhero stuff.  There are others out there I’m sure...but it was groundbreaking to me.  (The archives are complete, and the link to the first page can be found here: http://loveandcapes.com/comic/love-and-capes-strip-1/ ...I do recommend it, because it pokes fun at its own genre’s tropes, and yet it also flips several tropes all throughout the overall storyline.)

Artists, you are part of a long, wonderful, glorious tradition.  In fact, as far as we know, you’re literally older than writing; you were telling stories long before we had official written languages.  And you’re part of a tradition that includes animation masterpieces like Spider-Verse.

Take a few moments to take pride in that fact.  Even if you’re only on day 2 of learning how to draw...you’ve earned it.