#it's a similar process to film and edit and all that

[clusterfrock]

Black & Gold 1870s Natural Form Dress

Quite possibly my most sparkly dress to date! I had plans to attend a Victorian weekend at the end of February, which included a Saturday night ball. Having precisely zero ballgowns, and wanting to go 1870s natural form for the event I started digging around for inspiration and fabrics.

I ended up staring at a gold and white dress from The Age of Innocence film, and in my head it slowly transformed into a gold and black gown. I purchased a length of African George fabric, which is similar to sari fabric and has an embroidered hem, and a silk chiffon shot with a metallic pinstripe, and used some black taffeta and plain black satin from the stash to help supplement.

I started with a fairly simple skirt pattern from Peterson’s Magazine. This skirt comes from the 1877 edition of Peterson’s Magazine.

The initial draft was fine, but it seemed a bit slim over my very voluminous petticoat, so I compared the two patterns and ended up adding a few more inches to the center front and center back in order to fluff up the body of the skirt.

Once I was happy with the pattern, I cut the fashion skirt out of black taffeta, and the lining out of silver taffeta. Since I was flatlining the skirt, they would be treated as one layer while I worked.

I wanted to work out how the fan pleats worked in the back of the skirt, so I assembled the back panels first and futzed around with the pleats until I was able to make them work.

Then I went back and worked on the front of the skirt. I assembled the two front skirt panels, but left the skirt back on its own for the time being since it would be easier to embellish the front and back separately before sewing them together.

Before I began embellishing the front of the skirt, I added a 6-inch wide hem facing, which I stiffened with a layer of tarlatan. I wanted this so the ruffles at the hem would get a bit of support.

Then I moved on to making the ruffles for the front of the skirt. The plan was for one ruffle in black taffeta, edged with gold ribbon, and a wider ruffle of the metallic chiffon, also edged with ribbon.

The taffeta ruffle was first. The strips were cut, assembled, and hemmed, and then a 1/4-inch wide gold ribbon was stitched down along one edge.

Once all the pleats were in place, the strip was sewn onto the front of the skirt, and I moved on to making the chiffon ruffle. Because the chiffon was so slippery, I decided to give the entire length of fabric a light starch bath before even cutting anything out. It gave the fabric a bit more of a crisp hand, and kept the chiffon from creeping all over the place while I tried to work with it.

From there, it was basically the same process as before, except with way more spraying and pressing and pinning. The chiffon was very springy and didn’t want to hold a crisp pleat, and the ruffle was several inches wider than my pleating board, which required more steps to get the top and bottom edges to press cleanly. Eventually, though, I was able to get some nice, crisp, flat pleats into the chiffon.

Finally, I could start on the apron front. I cut a wide piece of my George fabric and draped it over the front of the skirt. I played with the positioning of some pleats to just give it a little bit of volume toward the bottom, and stitched those in place by hand once I was happy with how they looked. Then I cut two panels of the embroidered selvedge and used them as hip pieces that would frame the front panel.

Then it was time to return to the back of the skirt. The back panel finally got its hem facing, and then I started on the ruffles. The plan here was for two of the ribbon-edge taffeta ruffles, with a pouf of the embroidered satin up top, opening up in a fan that would end at the top edge of the hem pleats. So, more taffeta ruffles were made. Since the train is quite long, this ate up quite a bit of fabric!

To make the embroidered section of the skirt fan, I used the Peterson’s skirt pattern again, but I flipped it so the straight edge was against the finished hem of the fabric, and the curved edge was at the top. I also folded the pattern so that it was a good foot shorter, so it would lay right at the top of the ruffles and not obscure them.

I was a little stumped on what to do for the top half of the skirt back for a while. I didn’t have a lot of my embroidered satin left, and what I did have was in long, narrow cuts. I decided to make use of the remaining scalloped edge, and cut two 35-inch long pieces, which I pinned to the side-back seams and then pleated into a rounded shape. I had one 28-inch length piece left, which had no embroidered edges, so I placed that panel in the middle to give some additional fullness to the bustle pouf. It all turned out to be just enough fabric to make the back pouf, and I was very pleased with how it ended up looking.

At this point everything was just pinned together, so the next step was actually to carefully stitch this entire concoction together, which I did mostly by hand. Last but not least was to install a placket and waistband. Instead of going into the center back like I usually do, I put the placket/skirt opening on one of the side seams so it wouldn’t interfere with the bustle pouf in the back. The top edge of the back pouf extends a couple of inches over the placket and attaches with a snap, completely hiding the skirt opening.

I had been working on the skirt every spare moment hoping to give myself plenty of time to work on the bodice, but I still ended up in a time crunch, with only two weeks before the event to put something together. I decided that I wasn’t going to drape my own pattern, since that would require multiple fittings to get it just right, and instead decided to use Truly Victorian’s TV416, and just make a plain black satin bodice straight from the package. I did one mockup to adjust for size, since I know from experience that their patterns are always very wide in the shoulders and long in the waist on me, and then I dove in and began cutting out my final bodice.

I didn’t have any of the embroidered satin left which I could have finagled to give me plain bodice pieces, but I did have a bolt of black satin in my stash, so that’s what I ended up using. The two black colors are not quite a match, but luckily they’re close enough that it’s not super noticeable.

Even though it was a quick and plain bodice, I still wanted to construct and finish it well. There’s boning on the front darts, and I finished the top and bottom edges with a piped facing. I didn’t want to spend time making separate piping, so I sewed one edge of the facing in, placed some yarn between the facing and the seam allowance, and then stitched in the ditch to create the piping. And it worked well! Then I turned under the raw edge of the facing and hand-stitched it to the lining.

I did the bulk of the work on the bodice in the week leading up to the event, but, as is tradition, I was working on it at the last minute in the hotel room. I had to attach all the hooks for the closure and make all the thread bars, and I was sewing right up until about 10 minutes before we had to get ready and go!

But the dress was a success! I wore it to dinner and to the ball, where it performed beautifully while dancing.

[indecisivekatz]

DAY 2 OF KPOP DEMON HUNTER ANALYSIS!: Headcanon or Actual Theory? Here's Why Abs Saja Might Have a Complex Against Jinu + Cracked Headcanons for the Saja Boys

I'm really doing this am I? Heads up, this is going to be a bit more sillier than my last analysis- XD So please expect more Mean Girls references

Warnings for potential spoilers!! (But I'm like 90% sure this is not going to be happen, for all we know Abs Saja might only have abs on his mind). Also warning for me respectfully roasting the Saja Boys. is it really respectful if I'm still roasting these demon bois?

Okay, we should probably start with quickly introducing who Abs Saja is- Since these guys are a bit harder to differentiate these plastics from one another.

This is Abs Saja, he's got dark pink hair (not to be confused with Romance Saja who has light pink hair) and giant abs.

That's why his abs are so big, ThEy'RE fULL oF sEcReTs

Okay- you see this man, right? Right. Okay intros over- XD

Here's my theory/headcanon. I think this man HATES Jinu (aka the leader of the Saja Boys) and is very envious of his position as the lead boy of the Saja Boys. But it's not just that, I have reasons to believe he also admires Jinu. It's complicated--

Now- bear with me for this slight tangent, in the 2004 film, Mean Girls, what did Cady Heron do when she "hated" Regina George? But also still admired her power?? She became a plastic....... and also like- sabotaged her and indirectly got her hit by a bus and she stood by Regina's side.

What I'm suggesting is, what is Abs Saja (I swear to god, we need these guys' names, I can't take myself seriously as I type this XD) is similar to Cady, in that, he always follows Jinu around... shadowing him.

Notice how whenever we see Abs Saja, he's always next to Jinu!

See a few examples here:

Now this could just be chalked up to it being the Saja Boys' marketable lineup positioning (notice how Aqua Haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja is also always next to Jinu)... but!

As even outside of their marketing when they're just casually plotting to destroy the HUNTR/X like any normal demonic boy band would do, there we see him, standing next to Jinu. And this time, Aqua-Haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja isn't!

And it's not just that

There we see him, Abs Saja. Standing next to Jinu!

It's a lot harder to see here since the lighting makes it difficult to see, but through a process of elimination, Romance Saja is on the far left, Aqua-Haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja (god why did I decide to call him this for a dumb bit- my fingers are getting tired- XD) is to his right, then in the middle is Mysterious Saja. Which only leaves... yep, you guessed it Jinu and Abs Saja!

"Wowee, we're gonna be walking past our rivals! Hey Jinu, do you mind if I trail just behind you? Since I'm like super fit, I can look very intimidating behind you--"

I like to think that part of why Abs Saja is always trailing Jinu, is because he's genuinely drawn to Jinu's charisma and does believe in him... and regardless if my theory about him hating Jinu is true, it's obvious that he definitely will follow whatever Jinu tells him to do....

"Go do my laundry Abs Saja!"

Okay, so what if Abs Saja is always near Jinu? Maybe he's the second in command and so he HAS to always be there next to him...

But you know what's kinda interesting that I noticed?

Okay, so we haven't seen the actual start to this song-- but, I find it, forgive me for repeating my words, interesting that we see Abs Saja in the middle...

Almost as if he's clawing at the chance to at least get some attention. Like this is an opportunity to be perceived as important for once. I know the other boys shift into the middle in future songs (Mysterious Saja seems to do this in the Awards Show Song), but it could be a deliberate decision to have this man be in the centre in what most likely is the boys' debut song.

EDIT: oh my gosh- I can’t believe I forgot to mention this but in their Soda Pop outfits, notice how the other guys are wearing longer sleeves, whilst Abs Saja and Jinu show off their arms? This very much could just be a coincidence, but I headcanoned that as them being the most open and proud about their demon heritage.

Another note, I know I've shown this image off three times already but...

Isn't it interesting how Abs Saja is leaning ONLY on Jinu. Sure, Aqua-Haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja is also leaning on Jinu, but he also is wrapping his arms around Romance Saja. And we don't see Abs Saja doing that for Mysterious Saja...... pfft, maybe the two secretly hate each other, and Jinu noticed Abs Saja excluding Mysterious Saja out, so he forced the two to get their sh** together and that's why the next time we presumably see them in a marketing image, he's shown to be leaning against him.

This doesn't really necessarily prove nor outright debunk the whole Abs Saja hating Jinu theory- but I definitely think it supports some parts of it.

Now like I said, a lot of what I've said could actually be chalked up to Abs Saja either being the second-in-command to Jinu or him genuinely admiring the man so much he follows him around like a puppy.

But since this story is embedded with themes of being in a KPop band, it could be fun to see representation of feeling inadequate compared to the lead face. Sure, Abs Saja wants to defeat the HUNTR/X! But perhaps there's just a small part of him that hates how much love and attention Jinu's getting from everyone. Maybe even in the demon world, Jinu's getting all the credit for this brilliant idea. But what about him? He put in just as much effort in studying BTS and learning how to "Hey batter, batter swing"- WAIT sorry, lemme go back to being serious.

He put in just as much effort to be the best fake boy band member he could possibly be! So it's not fair that Jinu's going to be the mastermind behind this entire plan!

Lol, I even made up the silly headcanon that reason Abs Saja got his abs is just so he could have something over Jinu ahahaha XD

Anywayy- I think that's about it for Abs Saja.

NOW LET'S TALK CRACK HEADCANONS

I have a dumb headcanon that Mysterious Saja has only like one eye, so that's why he covers up his upper face with both his bangs. And... well, now he literally can't see. A few people in the KPop Demon Hunters Discord server even pointed out how in this photo, he's not even looking at the camera-- Probably because the man can't see where the camera is

I have no evidence for this at all, but I like the idea that despite the guys seemingly getting along super well, it's total cat-iness behind closed doors (even in the Demon World).

I specifically love headcanoning that Abs Saja has major beef with Aqua-haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja and Romance Saja. Just utter hatred for each other. Maybe Romance Saja ate Abs Saja's last tub of ice cream and Aqua-Haired Checkered-Sweater-Wearing Saja ate from Abs Saja's cooking jar before proceeding to use all of Romance Saja's makeup. So all three of them just hate each other-

Now... we all know Jinu can play an instrument (still a bit unsure which instrument that is since I can't count the strings on the instrument he's seen with in the trailer, for me to be 100% sure), indicating that he was already musically gifted...

And assuming the other Saja Boys are just as musically gifted.... what is these guys are Demon Musical Theatre School drop outs-- 😂

"Oh yeah, our plan is to turn into a rival music band...!"

"So like this doesn't have anything to do with you guys failing the audition to Demon Theatre Camp--"

A final cracked headcanon that I have is... right now, we're unsure if the Saja Boys are related or not. And I genuinely love the implications of either one.

Either Jinu's known the other Saja Boys for a long time (maybe they're brothers, maybe they're all best friends, maybe they're exes (I swear to god, if they're brothers, this joke is gonna age so poorly)), so he really walked up to the group and said, "Hey, let's start a band--"

Or- if he didn't know them... then that implies Jinu must've held auditions or something- XD

"Calling All Attractive Demons! Do You Think You Can Sing??" p.s must be good with tigers.

Last cracked theory:

Bobby’s (The HUNTR/X’s manager…? I think) the twist villain-

Just kidding- lol xD…. Or am I?

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chaotic theories and headcanons I've wrought upon Tumblr....

I'm going to sign off now, leaving you with... whatever the heck these theories are 🤣

[accio-victuuri]

today is 04/16, the anniversary of the Untamed’s booting ceremony and start of filming. i will be sharing an essay and story of their fandom journey by one of the OG bjyx fansites - 限時狂想丨0805x1005.

you all know how much i appreciate fansites and everything they do for the fandom. it’s also interesting to see the thoughts of someone who had been a cpf even before the drama was out. a person who was there from the beginning and is still here and active. their love for the boys is so inspiring 💛 this site is pretty popular cause they funded wuji road among other things.

personally, reading this really made me reflect on my time in this fandom. i have evolved from posting about cpns sparingly & answering fan questions to being an update account then archiving and constructing timelines. to editing and focusing on their careers with bits of political discussions as needed. to now, what i’ve been doing lately, is bits of things i have done in the past. it made me think about why i’m here and still am. that it’s not solely because of the candies and the proofs. although it started with that, it’s not why i stayed for years. it’s truly because there is something about GG and WYB that i connect with. them as individuals and moreso as a pair. in the past months, there were a lot of noise and distractions that made it hard for me but reading this was the perfect reminder that i needed to recalibrate.

i also think this piece answers the usual hate comment of so/os who tell us to “move on”.

the flowers are the same year after year, but the people are different year after year, fortunately there are always people who stay with each other and remember each other in their hearts — so this memory will always have weight and will never disappear.

let me just cry 🥹🥹🥹🥹

anyway, the full post is below. enjoy! and cheers to all cpfs. 🥂

"Yibo taught me two dances yesterday"

By chance, I was browsing Weibo and saw a video of GG at the airport.

In the video, GG mentioned that DD taught him two dances, which was amazing. That night, the names of the two boys kept coming to my mind, and I got up and stayed up late to catch up on many of GG and DD’s materials.

I have to thank a few fan-made clips that I happened to see at the time, which made me see the infinite magnetic field and huge possibilities between these two names, and the attraction that was like fate to me.

"I want to hunt with you at night all my life"

This was the first Weibo post after the website was launched. The picture was of GG and DD leaving get off work at night. Although there was only their backs under dim lights, they still tried to share the light captured in the corner with everyone, so I had a limited-time fantasy.

Before that, I had hesitated about other website names, and the process of finally choosing these four words was also full of many uncertainties, whether it was the suspension of work caused by some changes in the crew of The Untamed during that period, or some bad speculations and comments about The Untamed and my brother and younger brother on the Internet. Now recalling that time, I was standing at the starting point with fog in front of me, and there were too many unknowns ahead that I couldn’t see, but I’m glad that I chose to move forward, holding hands with you, and walking through the fog to see the distance.

I often see people joking in the comments that I have hidden a lot of good things. Indeed, there are some photos of the crew that have not been released, because many scenes in the same frame are similar, the clarity of the photos is not enough, and the requirements for the photos are usually high, so they will be carefully selected before they are released. If you are willing to see it, you can catch yourself and shake it when you have the chance in the future...

"Xiang Mei"

I remember that in the beginning of 2018, the fans all called me Xiang Mei. After the filming of The Untamed was completed, the circle that was originally lively during the filming began to gradually become deserted, so I made a tacit agreement with everyone that I would post some Weibo stories on holidays, either holding hands or standing side by side. I want to tell everyone in this way that brothers and sisters are very good, and stay with them for a little longer, a little longer.

Actually, 2018 was a very meaningful year for me. Every time I shared GG and DD’s activity pictures and videos on Weibo, I would read the reposts and comments back and forth. At that time, the number of reposts was very small. I would be happy for a long time when the number of reposts exceeded 100. I can still remember the Weibo IDs of some of the people who often reposted and commented. Sometimes I would chat with everyone in the comments and answer some questions. After a long time of ordinary days, I was surprised by the increasing number of comments, reposts and private messages after the show started, and sometimes I was in a trance. How did I suddenly become everyone’s "Xiang Mei".

Now there are tens of thousands of people following the footsteps of GG and DD ( she is talking about fansites here ) . Maybe everyone has some special feelings for the 18-year-old station, but Limited Time Fantasy has always maintained the mood at the beginning, as pure and passionate as everyone else. If there is any difference, it is just that I am a little luckier than everyone who came later, and I saw GG and DD earlier.

Everyone in the big family of BJYX supports them in different ways, output, charity, support... It is really a blessing to like the brothers and sisters with everyone, and I will work hard to live up to everyone's higher expectations in the future.

"No. 85"

In May last year, the DD participated in the official motorcycle race for the first time and won the first place in the qualifying. I was already looking forward to seeing DD standing on the podium. Fate still played a little joke. When DD started, his car had a problem and went back for repair. After catching up with the player in front, the car gradually slowed down at a bend.

The stubborn little lion got off the car and pushed the motorcycle to run, but finally had to terminate the race. There are always regrets in the cruel competitive sports. The 22-year-old rookie racer still has a long way to go. Later, another race came in August. Zhuhai was scorching hot in midsummer. Driver No. 85 changed into a new racing suit and raced round and round. Although I was holding a camera, every time you whizzed past me, I was behind the camera screaming for you and happy for you from the bottom of my heart. "Congratulations to driver No. 85, Wang Yibo" The audience burst into cheers and and applause. Champion driver No. 85, you deserve all the glory.

"Satisfied"

In the autumn of the year before last, GG released his first single in the true sense three years after his debut. He sang it for the first time at the concert the day before his birthday. You were red on the stage, and the whole sea of red in the audience was for you. On the night after the Hangzhou concert, I was sorting pictures in front of the computer, and suddenly I saw a screenshot of Weibo sent by a friend. It was the first Weibo interaction between the GG and DD after the filming was completed. I was so happy that I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night. It turned out that they didn't stop contacting each other after the filming was completed. DD would also celebrate his birthday with GG.

The first solo performance of Happy Camp, parting with Wei Wuxian who always holds his fan, the summer sun in Hengdian has made GG who has returned to modern dress look much thinner, from the small round face with a little flesh on the cheeks to the sharp features and the belt that is always tied to the last hole. You chew a piece of bread 37 times, which gradually shows everyone the strict self-management of a mature male artist, but I still want to tell you in my heart that it is not excessive to eat a few more small breads.

The first real red carpet, the look on GG’s face when he said “Hello everyone, I am the young actor Xiao Zhan” still often comes to my mind. The boy who said “The power of growth is my satisfaction” in the secret garden became more and more confident and free under the flash, completing one adventure after another of growth. I have always felt that GGis the most gentle boy I have ever seen, and he has given me a lot of strength.

“2018-2019”

In the New Year’s Eve of 2018, GG transformed into Zhang Xiaofan and filmed in the crew. Even in the deep mountains, he told himself with a sense of ritual that 2019 was going to be a good year. On the other side, the Hunan Satellite TV New Year’s Eve concert had passed midnight, the finale guest ended the performance, and the audience left one after another. DD, as the host of Hunan Satellite TV, also had a performance song. At that time, his fans were not as many as they are now. When shooting the stage, the little sister behind me was also wondering, “Aren’t there only hosts on the stage?” Looking at the empty seats and the ribbons scattered all over the ground, I thought that more people would come for you in the future and stay for you after midnight.

In the New Year's Eve of 2019, on one side, the three stages of GG performed at midnight, and on the other side, the whole audience was screaming for the water stage and motorcycle ring of the younger brother. In different cities, more people shouted for you with full love, and you brought an extremely shining halo to end the past year.

However, there will be regrets in a perfect story. The expectation of spending the New Year together at the end of the year did not come true after all. I hope you will spend the New Year's Eve this year.

"The Untamed"

I saw all kinds of news on the Internet before, and I felt that the broadcast of The Untamed would be far away. When the news came out before the broadcast, I still didn't believe it until the double Bazaar cover. I thought maybe it was really going to be broadcast. I saw the news on the morning of the official announcement and felt that it was going to be broadcast.

From Tianjin to Beijing, from Bangkok to Nanjing, the pot was boiled for a long time, and the young man was sacrificed many times. At the end of the Nanjing scene, the brothers said "goodbye" as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, and the big screen showed "see you later". The scenes from the filming of The Untamed to the subsequent activities flashed through my mind, and tears flowed down in an instant (of course, the hand holding the camera was still steady).

The story of the brothers and sisters about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji has come to the final chapter. Everything this summer is so unforgettable. I don’t know when and where we will meet again, and what the scene will be like... The mountains remain unchanged, the water flows forever, and their story is yet to be continued.

From 2018 to now, there have been many hard and tiring periods. When there are many activities at the end of the year, I am in a different city almost every day when I open my eyes. Sometimes I have classes the next day, and it is common to fly back and forth between two or three cities on the same day. I have made a lot of efforts and attempts to balance my three-dimensional study and life.

Like everyone else, I often feel stressed, but every time I think about seeing GG and DD soon, every time I check Weibo and see everyone's dynamics and encouraging words, I feel that there are still too many things in this lovely world that are worth my efforts.

A lot of stories have happened in the past two years. These days, I have been looking through the records and recalling them bit by bit... It has been years since the start of filming. Thank you Chen Qing Ling for letting GG and DD meet again. This drama is of great significance to them and too many of us.

A few years ago, I went back to the filming location of The Untamed and walked around again. The pillars of Cloud Recesses have been painted with other patterns, the familiar figures have long disappeared from the woods of Baifeng Mountain, and the Mianmian House has changed several waves of residents... Walking along the track of memory, I sighed that as the saying goes, the flowers are the same year after year, but the people are different year after year, but fortunately there are always people who stay with each other and remember each other in their hearts, so this memory will always have weight and will never disappear. Every important day in life is like a box of canned food. Love is the best preservative. Beautiful memories do not deteriorate, allowing us to fantasize about them repeatedly from time to time, and the shelf life is forever.

It's time to chatter again, and I start typing and writing down the stories of the past year. I often count on my fingers on the "Boxiao Calendar" in my phone. How many days are left until the next anniversary? I flip through my phone and recall what kind of mood I was in at this time of year in the past. Excited, nervous, moved, sad, year after year, past and present, all kinds of fragments always come back and forth in my mind on this day, and the sense of ritual in my bones always drives me to do something.

I often see everyone's various team-building activities and envy them. I have always been chasing stars offline alone and wanted to participate in a turtle carnival, but unfortunately missed it due to personal reasons. Later, I heard from my friends that everyone sent a lot of gifts. I was really flattered.

Thank you for your support and love. I often see people commenting about cooperation with other sites. In fact, I also sigh that many pictures or videos are very beautiful. I also have a lot of pictures and videos saved in my mobile phone that I don’t want to delete. The stories told by everyone together are more complete and moving. However, I have very few people who share the same responsibility in the three-dimensional world. Most of the time, I run around alone. So I am very happy that I have met many new painters in the circle online this year, as well as Xia Xiazi and Xi Xizi, who have fed me a lot of cute peripherals. Here I would like to say thank you to everyone again.

There will be more anniversaries of all sizes in the future. Some people say that it is difficult to keep the original intention, but memory and love are always the best preservatives.

In my opinion, charity is a way to convey love, and it is also a very precious part of this circle. GGvisited Wei County without anyone knowing in advance to help with poverty alleviation. I also squatted on Douyin to grab charity shirts for a night. Later, I continued to see various promotions for agricultural products. While supporting charity, I can also understand and taste various high-quality and low-priced agricultural and sideline products.

At the Hunan Satellite TV's charity event to help farmers, while filming the cute little brother with Chibi Maruko-style hair, he was also busy grabbing agricultural products. Everyone in the family said that the oranges were so delicious! After work, my brother participated in the free clinic. Even though he was very tired and took a long car ride to arrive in the early morning, he personally helped the patients who came for treatment.

A trickle of kindness lasts a long time. On weekdays, I will learn and check a lot of information, hoping to follow my brother and younger brother as an example and do more practical charity. At the beginning of last year, I was worried every day under the cover of the epidemic. The fragility of life was in front of me, and safety became the most important wish. At that time, I thought in my heart: I hope that every blessing of charity can return to GG and DD, and I will be safe and worry-free.

We have received feedback from the charity work we did before: Hope Primary School is being built step by step, the AED equipment donated with the help of Chongqing Red Cross Foundation has been put into use in my brother's alma mater, the hearing-impaired children have successfully undergone surgery, the Love Classroom has been put into use, and the action of helping students has received many thank-you letters from children... I feel very happy when I see these. Love makes every charity warm, and openness also makes every love traceable.

In my eyes, 2020 is also a year of hardship and harvest. Due to various reasons such as the epidemic, various activities this year have not been so smooth. There are true and false news about my brother flying all over the place. I have run to a city several times to wait in vain for several days. It is really sad to feel that my expectations are not met. Whenever I think of that period of time, I feel wronged and distressed for everything he has endured, but I can't do anything about it. Fortunately, he came back, step by step through the fog, and tried to stand in front of us.

When we said goodbye, he had a neat short hair. As I watched the figure gradually become clear under the spotlight, all the emotions came up in an instant. I couldn't tell what kind of mood I was in. I tried to look more greedily, but I couldn't control it anymore, and let the tears blur my eyes. He was still smiling and singing under the spotlight, and it seemed to become brighter. Every word of the lyrics pierces my heart. I will run to it with all my strength. Even if it is far, I will definitely reach it. The screams of the two events separated by a year are endless. Everything seems to have changed and it seems to have not changed. I will cover my face quietly when I am shy, look around and gesture the numbers half a beat behind when counting down, and I will still be scared by the popping fireworks... Every familiar little action made up the vivid him in front of me. If DD in the past was described as a bamboo, then he is now a pine tree. He has cut his hair short but has become more resolute and proud, and he is still upright. It is no exaggeration to describe DD as a model worker in the past year.

After a full schedule, he coughed lightly to avoid the microphone on the show and his foot injury was occasionally discovered. I dare not recall the most anticipated competition. I was ready early that afternoon, wondering if the light would be too dim, and which copywriter would be more suitable if I won the first place... Suddenly, there was a scream from the crowd, and the girls around me began to sob. I couldn't see the broadcast screen, and I could only hear the voices around me, "Fall" and "Last lap".

At that moment, my mind was confused, and the first thought that came to my mind was: I hope I'm safe. I don’t remember how long I squatted on the roadside with my camera. Later, when the crowd was almost gone, my tears slowly fell to the ground. I ran back to the podium unwillingly to take a few photos and stood there for a long time. The kid in street dance returned to his stage, and he could light up the whole audience every time, dazzling the audience.

Looking back on the time when Captain Xiao Wang was there, it was the big and small injuries on his legs and the compressed sleep time. He said that the superpower he wanted most was invisibility, so that he could do what he wanted and go out to play. So I really liked the summer surf shop last year, which gave my brother a chance to breathe in his busy work. Sunshine, beach, waves, the boy with sparkling eyes, the vigorous vitality all over his body, and the happiness on his face that could not be hidden, is my favorite look of him.

That year's meeting was particularly difficult. Every moment before the Starlight Awards was over was full of unknowns. It was not until I stood on the familiar roadside of the Youth Olympic Games and walked along the long path by the river that I felt it was real.

After going around in circles, I returned to the familiar place and met again in the place where "See you later" was once written. I couldn't help but sigh that the fateful fate is really wonderful. Sitting in the venue, watching the familiar light signs light up one by one, screaming and shouting with all my strength, telling them all the thoughts of the past year, telling them that we are still here, always here; it is another Weibo Night of the year, and I can always find them at a glance among the crowd, and witness their growth and glory together.

It is not easy to meet among the countless people, and I am very grateful to be fortunate enough to witness the node where they meet on the road of life. They are on the stage and we are off the stage. It's great to be the same as before. During this period of time, people, things and objects are undergoing tremendous changes all the time, but everyone has not gone far, and they are as determined as when they first set out.

Like everyone else, I can proudly tell everyone that my idol is Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. Their positive attitude and qualities are my confidence, and they are also the driving force for me to take off and land again and again and run forward. For me, Bo and Xiao are a piece of moonlight that I stole by chance in this ever-changing world. "The moon is far away, and the moonlight is close." I work hard to collect moonlight and illuminate a small inch of the world. We have followed them, felt the bright sunshine, blown the sticky sea breeze, seen the ribbons fall on their shoulders, and looked forward to seeing them again with tears in our eyes.

Love is as common as breathing, taking root and growing, and entwining every summer. Time has no end. In the hustle and bustle, love is eternal, and memories are immortal.

At this moment, the sunrise and sunset in Hengdian, the ebb and flow of the tide in Beihai, the years are still long, slowly becoming romantic, slowly becoming brilliant.

"I hope it will be good news from now on"

-END.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Music commission prices!

Update: Editing my prices again bc I still think I was undercharging a little bit from my work and also the payment processor I use to transfer money from P*ypal to my bank account recently increased their fees.

Hey everyone! My name's Carlos, I'm a composer and producer. I'm one half of the technical death metal band Beyond Flesh, and I've been doing commissioned music work since 2021. I did all the battle themes for the RPGmaker game Those Infernal Girls! and several battle themes for the "Chillen in Chult" arc of the the D&D twitch show Dice Dynamics. I also did one bonus track for the album We Will All Sing One Song by the James Connolly Upstate New York IWW.

I can make music for your:

OC

Climactic TTRPG moment

Videogame

Short Film

Whatever else idk

The main genres I do are metal, synthwave, and dungeon synth, but I've done a bunch of commissioned work in different genres, from 8bit to jazz to EDM to hiphop backing tracks. If in doubt, ask me and I'll tell you if I can do a particular genre or not.

Prices:

Base commission price (Includes 1 minute of music, 2 instrument tracks plus percussion track) - $12 USD

Extra instrument track - $6 USD

Extra minute of music - $6 USD

Examples:

Some examples of my previous work so you can get an idea of my range:

You don't need to know anything about music theory or related language to commission me, but do have in mind that the more ifnormation you're able to provide the better the end result will be. Vibe descriptions, reference tracks that you want it to sound similar to, writeups of the character and/or scene it's for, and anything else you can think of are massively helpful. I'll be continually sending you WIPs through the entire process so you can judge the direction I'm going in and provide notes if necessary.

You get to keep all rights to the song to use it for any purpose. I, however, keep the right to post it on my tumblr blog, my youtube channel, or any of my socials for promotional purposes.

You may contact me through DMs here, or through the following media:

e-mail: juan.hernandez9903@gmail.com

Discord: carlos7318

I only accept payment via p*ypal invoices, as c*shapp and v*nmo don't work in my country.

[apple-salad]

Rose Ribbon Embroidery "Mini" Projects (for BABY NYFW) Part 2: Embroidered Bonnet

I decided semi-last minute to attend BABY's fashion show at NYFW!

BABY had mentioned in their NYFW brand description that their newest collection would be a return to their origins, as well as presenting archival items.

You have to dress to impress for NYFW, right? So of course, I had to pull out all the stops and wear my Rose Ribbon Embroidery.

Also at the last minute, I decided to make a few extra complementing items...

A matching RRE kumya JSK, and a bonnet.

What follows is more of a sew-along/journal rather than a tutorial or guide, mainly for my own memory's sake. But if you enjoy looking at my process (sometimes sloppy), I'm happy!

Also feel free to take a look at the more romantic process video I edited.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet (you are here)

This post will be my process pictures and notes for the bonnet, as well as a matching mask as a bonus.

I don't believe BABY released matching headwear for Rose Ribbon Embroidery, although I've seen an unknown velveteen headbow with rose lace sold with RRE before.

BABY usually coords RRE with the bunny ear bonnet since Ichigo wears it this way in Kamikaze Girls.

I do own this because I wanted to wear an Ichigo-like outfit at some point, but for this occasion I decided to do something different and make a "matching" embroidered bonnet.

I originally wanted to make a hard bonnet with a very defined brim that could show off the embroidery clearly as I don't really like soft bonnets, but when looking at existing BABY bonnets as a reference, it doesn't look like hard bonnets were a thing back in 2004 (and as it is, BABY rarely releases hard bonnets). So to keep with the oldschool theme, the bonnet is a soft one, although I later make some decisions to make it slightly more structured.

The next decision to make was full bonnet vs half bonnet. The bunny ear bonnet is a full bonnet and I think this is technically more "period accurate", but I am not a fan of how they look like a weird hood from the back so I opted for half (plus, that makes construction and patterning easier for me).

I still used my own bunny ear bonnet as a reference for approximate brim dimensions!

The kumya JSK was a little easier to carelessly sketch out and embroider since I was copying 1:1 from an existing design, but I felt I needed to do at least a bit more careful planning for the embroidery on this. I'm quite bad at creating embroidery designs from scratch, but with the mental image of the rose clusters and swags of vine, as well as referencing the embroidery from the film, I came up with this:

I wanted to emulate the embroidery style of the Momoko's (well, in reality likely the embroidery designer Onoe Megumi--unclear if she did the actual embroidery, but it's likely) embroidery, which I figured wouldn't be too difficult if I was also embroidering by hand.

For material, I am using the same velveteen I used for kumya's JSK. Not my first choice and I actually purchased some thicker looking 100% cotton velvet that I thought would be more similar to the original JSK material, but was worried it wouldn't arrive in time and wanted this project out of the way in case things went wrong/took longer than I expected (it did arrive about a week before the event, but it was totally wrong IRL so I'm glad I just went with this acceptable option). I also bought some more torchon lace, so I used that and another lace from my stash.

The colours of the embroidery in the film also seem to be quite different than BABY's dress. I'm not sure if the pink of the roses has faded over the years, but it has a slight salmon tone whereas the film's roses seem to be more of a pale cool/neutral pink (hard to tell with the yellow tint of the entire film) with some variegation. I love the colour scheme of the film's embroidery, but to keep things coordinated I try to opt for the same colours as the actual dress I have.

I only have white silk ribbon in the width I wanted, so I opted to attempt to dye it to match. Previously I have used alcohol markers to colour the embroidery afterwards, but I find the colour hard to control and it tends to bleed into the fabric. I've also tried colouring the ribbon with the marker before embroidering, but without heat setting the colour transfers onto the fabric as well (and it seems like trying to do so with the amount of ribbon I need would be a waste of ink).

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but since the ribbon is silk, acid dyeing seemed like the way to go.

Very interesting photo of ribbon in pot (the pink ribbon gets eaten up by pinwheel roses much faster than I expected so this is the second batch I had to dye--not ideal as they are definitely slightly different in colour but it's not too noticeable). In total, I think I had to dye 3 batches of ribbon and 4 for the pink ribbon as I just barely ran out near the end, and they are all slightly different colours. Thankfully the undertone is the same so it's difficult to tell unless you are really comparing up close.

I thought I would take this opportunity to use the "peach" acid dye that I bought years ago for another project, but this ended up being a mistake as the colour was totally off (maybe the red dye was too expired). I ended up using my regular fiber reactive procion dyes (with heat/acid), because I have many more colours I could mix together, and that was much better. I really should have done this from the start as I wasted perfectly good silk ribbon by making it too dark/off for my purposes (I ended up overdyeing it in pink so it's a usable colour now, but not for this project).

The silk seems to take on dye extremely fast--even just heating up the dyebath will colour it. In some cases I removed the ribbon before adding any acid at all because I felt the ribbon was already getting too dark.

I managed to get a fairly usable mossy green colour for the leaves and vines, however the pink still ended up being a little off/dark compared to whatever BABY used. It's not too bad here as one strand of ribbon, but when many layers are on top of each other in a rose it seems pretty dark. While not ideal, I think it's still okay, especially considering the embroidery colours used in kumya's JSK match nothing else (many pinks will be going on in this coord).

After dyeing and drying, the ribbon is super wrinkled so I ironed it and wound it on some spare card so it's ready to use.

And now I can start the arduous process of embroidery.

Like before, I mainly use a combination of ordinary ribbon stitches, pinwheel roses, and french knot roses. However, this time I try harder to duplicate, or at least evoke the appearance of the embroidery of the film.

It's interesting how plain and somewhat boring the roses look on their own, especially with this monotone colouring. The varied colours of the film's embroidered roses are lovely, but I decided against it here because the BABY dress has monotone ribbon roses.

The roses definitely seem to just be pinwheel style which is very easy and doable, however I am a bit more confused about the leaves. They look like a number of straight stitches in various lengths and directions that fill in a leaf-like shape. I have no idea if this technique has a name and if there is a proper method for it, because I am a silly beginner who is very uneducated in embroidery.

Anyway I do my best and hopefully I got close enough. Ribbon embroidery is really all about the texture, which is really lovely to look at. Except I have trouble looking at my own work for too long because I start nitpicking all the mistakes I made...

Adding the green and leaves really helps the embroidery come to life.

I took even fewer pictures of the embroidery process than kumya's JSK this time because it's not that interesting. I was definitely getting sick of doing the same pinwheel over and over...

I stupidly decided that aside from embroidering the front of the brim, I also wanted a little bit of embroidery on the back of the brim for interest, as well as on the side.

The designs I drafted out for these two pieces is much simpler, but still, more work....

Almost ready for construction! Hopefully a lot faster with the handwork out of the way.

I iron on some interfacing onto the back brim panel and the bonnet band for slight extra stiffness.

The bottom part of the brim is plain cotton sateen because I was worried that the part that touches the head would get dirtier more quickly it if was velveteen.

I wanted some lace gathered around the brim and an extra velveteen ruffle on the back of the band, so I prepare that now. The lace is gathered with a single gathering thread and sewn down before sandwiching between the two brim panels.

Brim sewn and topstitched (and band is ready for attachment).

The upper flowers ended up a little closer to the top of the band then I intended, but I think it's okay.

Gathering brim and attaching it to band. Because the velvet fabric is so thick, the usual "sew one line of stitching with a wide stitch length" not only made the fabric incredibly difficult to gather, but the thin polyester thread also continually broke when trying to do so. Therefore, I opted for an alternative method I think I'd remember seeing in my sewing machine manual of all things--a zigzag carefully stitched over a central gathering thread. This worked much better, although I probably should have used a thicker/extra strong thread as the central gathering thread because it did break the second time I had to gather the brim due to a mistake.

I also add a bit of lace to the inside of the brim. I think this adds some luxury and frilliness between the head and the bonnet's brim, so I wanted to add a small width. I probably could have used even more of the lace's width since it turned out very subtle when worn. But I still think it adds a small amount of interest to the innermost part of the brim and was worth adding.

Unfortunately here after sewing on both brim parts I realize that I gathered both using an incorrectly marked centre line, so I had to rip it out and do it again ;_;

Next, I can carefully align and pin the bottom of the brim to the bonnet and sew it down. I tack this down by hand because I'm not skilled/accurate enough with a sewing machine to topstitch both sides nicely at once (look closely, and my messy stitching is quite visible...)

I also fold in the raw edges and finish the sides of the brim by hand, leaving some openings for ribbon ties.

At this point I spray almost the whole bonnet with water to disperse and fade my markings. Unfortunately, some of the earlier batches of ribbon that I dyed (Can you tell the variance in the 3 dye batches I needed to do?) were probably not washed well after dying and seem to have bled into the fabric from the water...but hopefully it's not too noticeable.

Next I topstitched all around the brim and attached the ribbon ties.

I bought some double sided velvet ribbon in my last minute supplies shipment and made some bows from it. I think the material is a little thick and petersham would have worked alright as well, but the consistent velvet material feels more luxurious, doesn't it? I also think as an added benefit (?) the ribbon being plush and double sided made the bows more puffy looking.

I add some clips to the sides and a toupee clip to the top for security. I opted for a toupee clips because I think it's really the way to go if you don't want the head item to move at all, no matter how thin or slippery your hair.

Finished.

Bonus 1: rose accent pin

I was in a bit of a rush at this point as it was near the end of the week coming up to the show, so I didn't take any photos of the process here but the technique and templates I used were identical to my handmade faux rose rosettes I made for UM (and the bonus corsages). I have a post with all the details of this sitting in my drafts that I will post eventually, and I will update this post when that happens.

The brooch was just meant to add a bit of 3D faux flower accent to the bonnet, bringing in the rose motif even more. Partially inspired by the faux flowers BABY adds to their bonnets sometimes, like on Milk Tea Doll.

The fabric was "custom dyed" with the same fiber reactive dye I used for the silk. The fabric was further starched, cut out by hand, and shaped with flower iron tools before gluing together.

Bonus 2: matching embroidered mask

I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to wear a matching mask, but decided to do so for situations when I would want my face at least half-covered in public. I didn't really expect to be visible in fashion show pictures as someone in the back, but just in case. (I think this decision was worth it, although my makeup transferred all over the thing and in most pictures my face was even more unflattering. eh well)

I forgot to take a lot of pictures of my process for this, but it's very uninteresting and not dissimilar from every other mask sewalong from 2020. I draft out a design similar to the bonnet motifs on both of my mask panels (cotton sateen), and embroider.

I should have embroidered closer to the centre of the mask because when worn the embroidery is not very visible/covered by my hair at the sides. What can I do since the panels were already cut though...oh well!

The lining material is some Japanese CLEANSE Ex fabric I had bought previously to make masks during the pandemic. It's supposed to be antibacterial and antiviral, as well as washable, but I have no idea how well supported those claims are.

Sew together normally on both upper and lower sides, turn inside out, add a channel for nose wire and side channels for elastic.

I also have some mask elastic on hand so I use that.

And the finished outfit again with all my items~

Thank you for reading! If you ever feel inspired to take up a similar project, such as the kumya JSK, I'd love to see it!

[eldritchneuro]

The great thing about being a media student is that you can take the series you've been hyperfixating on for the last year and have it be a legitimate source of references for your folio. So on that note, here's some technical analysis of some of my favorite shots from Stampede.

This shot is a rapid tilt upwards onto a slight low-angle shot of Knives, making him imposing and giving him more agency. (Note that a camera "pan" is along the horizontal axis, "tilt" is for the vertical). He has power, Vash does not, and this is emphasized by way Knives holds Vash's 'lifeline' in his hands, almost caressing it, a fact that is absolutely not creepy at all.

Said 'lifeline' also serves to finely cut the screen in two right through the middle and the overall shot composition is rigid, symmetrical and monotone, which plays into the more artificial and 'orderly' elements in Knives' characterization and design. Knives himself isn't completely symmetrical though, with one hand reaching up and the other down. Oh, and there's eye imagery here too - note how the light from above can resemble a pupil, and the ring around the middle resembles a scelera.

There's frame within a frame, and I thiiiiink you call this shot within a shot? I'm not entirely sure. Either way, it's very liminal, not really an extreme wide shot I don't think, but it has the same impact - loneliness and isolation. If anything, this framing works even better to that effect then your typical exws, because the pure black borders means there's literally nothing around Rollo but negative space.

It's actually not dissimilar to something like the camera shots in Alex Garland's Civil War, and both serve similar effects.

By showing a sequence through an obvious layer of mediation, like a camera or film recording, you place it in the past - someone after all had to process that film or edit that sequence. It separates the viewer and the character pictured, and highlights the passage of time. I often associate it with a sense of mortality and surrealism, because if well preserved, a photo from 100 years ago might just look as if was taken yesterday (yes I know this is an exaggeration because photos from 100 years ago were much more grainy blah blah SHUT UP it's about the themessss. The motiffffsss.).

I can't not do the pussy portal, can I? As above, so below - there's a contrast between Vash's dark roots and Knives' pale blades, although it's kinda subtle. There's something almost solarpunk-y? going on, with a mixture of the artificial (glass, knives) and the organic (roots, bulbs, Vash's body itself). Both elements feel like they're working in tandem here, as both organic and artificial share the same black-white-blue colour pallet, and Vash's portal takes elements of both light and dark, serving as a link between the two. Also if you turn a pussy on its side and add a dot in the middle where Vash's body is floating, it yet again starts to look like an eye.

The infamous Wolfwood title drop is more of a full sequence as opposed to a singular shot, but what the hell, it's known for a reason. Starts with an over-the-shoulder from Wolfwood's perspective, cuts to a long over-the-knee/plan Americain, close up of Vash's face in portrait, out to a wide shot, and then we get the title drop. As mentioned, it's a slow, drawn-out sequence - not many cuts. The structuring of time here is meandering and coupled with the warm mood lighting, soft music and intimate over-the-shoulder shot, it's almost a bit romantic. This is point where connection is being established, but not fully - there's still a lot of distance between Vash and Wolfwood in that wide shot, not to mention Wolfwood having to move away from Vash to grab his safety blanket Punisher.

There's also some miscellaneous smaller details. The Wolfwood title is placed on episode lucky number seven, contrasting his introduction in episode unlucky number four. And we can't miss that half-moon specifically above Vash in that wide shot!

[utilitycaster]

What do you mean (from your latest post) that you think that many actual play failures are failures of ambition?

Usually, when an actual play show doesn't click for me, it's because the GM or players aimed very high or tried to push the boundaries (of the medium or system) and it didn't quite land right. It's a pretty new medium, and while I've been very openly disparaging of how much many writers in the AP space focus overmuch on novelty over consistent quality, I do think these failures are important! I think it's good to play with what the medium can be! I just think that sometimes, it does indeed fail.

Examples off the top of my head:

Too much plot for allotted length: EXU Prime was fun to watch but I think this plot really needed to be a 16-20 episode season, not an 8 episode one, which meant that we never really learned Myr'atta's motivation or the deal with Ted until years later in the real world despite that being the core plot. Similar issues have come up with various D20 seasons; I think running a one- or two- session story isn't too hard to do, or running a longform campaign isn't too hard to do, but 8 or 10 or 20 episodes can be really difficult to plan for properly, and a lot of people overfill.

Trying to bend the system too far: I wrote a long-ass post I cannot find about this for a few D20 seasons as well (notably Neverafter) and I've fallen off of WBN for a few reasons but in part because it really increasingly feels like D&D is the wrong system - the classes of D&D support the worldbuilding, but the pace and style and magic system of D&D increasingly feel like they and the narrative are in conflict.

Trying to fit in An Important Message: the infamous Rusty Quill Gaming Everything Changes [now make a monumental decision we have not once explored in 7 real world years of telling this story, in the last half of the last episode] is a big one here. This is not unique to AP (this is why Battlestar Galactica's ending is widely panned) but I think the nature of actual play makes it more likely because to some extent you as the GM must relinquish a good degree of control.

Not realizing what you need to plan for: ultimately, in my opinion, the failure of Campaign 3. I don't think the problem is that Matt wanted to bring everything together across multiple campaigns; I don't think this is a cheap setup with a pre-determined outcome (though I could be proven wrong); I think the problem is that there needed to be a much more stringent character creation process and on-rails early plot to actually get from point A to point B in a way that felt natural within the story.

Trying to break production value records while neglecting story: With the caveat that I hated nearly every second of the hour of Kollok I watched, I have yet to see a review that talks about anything it does other than how good the production values are (*whisper* they're not even that good). Burrow's End had some really good aesthetic/filming choices and some really not good ones on top of having a story I found weak; the season of Candela Obscura I thought had the strongest story had no split-screen film edits. This could just be that my AP introduction was TAZ Balance followed by simultaneous C1 and early C2, but like...I've heard incredible actual play with no music and no fancy lighting and no sound effects and no official character art, and I've watched some heavily produced stuff that had the plot of a fucking Ed Wood movie and was utterly joyless to boot. Story first; accessibility production values (clean and clear sound, transcripts, making all speakers visible if you're a filmed production) second; anything else should ONLY come after that.

[wild-aspen]

So something I realized watching a few videos and reading a few articles is that most of us aren’t angry at the idea of AI in general. Many of us are excited to learn about AI systems that can identify cancer better than doctors, for instance.

What we’re angry about is generative AI being used to destroy the jobs of artists (and I mean all creatives here), who have already been dealing with their work being devalued by modern society.

And I’m not sure how to deal with it. I do remember learning that when photography became a thing, many painters were horrified and terrified of would erase the art of painting. It didn’t obviously, and in fact photography because a whole new art form.

I grew up during the birth of digital art. I distinctly remember the phase digital art went through where many people declared it to not be “real art” and that it was “cheating” etc. I’m sure other millennial artists also remember this transition. But graphic designers pretty quickly adopted digital tools, and websites like DeviantArt popped up, and I don’t think there are too many people nowadays who would say a digital painting isn’t “art”. Still, I do imagine there is a gulf between how some people would view the “artistic merit” of a 3 ft tall oil painting hanging next to a 3 ft tall print of a digital painting, even if the subject and styles were similar. So the worries that digital art would erase physical painting was also proven false. And for the record, I think digital art is 100% art. The merit of digital art is equal to that of physical art.

On the other hand, I can’t say these changes didn’t affect older forms of art. Like, photography did affect the world of painting. I don’t have statistics, but it seems like it probably affected the world of portraiture the most. And I wonder if many of the 20th century art movements were influenced by photography. None of my art history classes touched on that and it’s kinda weird to me. There is definitely something about a Dada or cubism or surrealist painting that transcends beyond what a traditional photo of a landscape or a portrait can do. There is no location in the real world with actual melting clocks or people whose faces show multiple angles at once.

And then there was the digital photograph that changed everything again! Film has become a niche art form.

There were specific kinds of jobs lost due to the digital transition, too. I’m thinking of things like murals being replaced by printed banners, or book covers often being done in photoshop. Oh, and that’s another tool that was faced with fear: Photoshop! There was a fear it would destroy the need for professional photographers because everyone could just fix their own photos. Turns out nope, and in fact people skilled in photography and photo editing are still in demand. And of course there’s the loss of 2D animation in favor of 3D animation, the loss of practical effects for digital, etc.

And you might argue that in some of those cases people can tell corners are being cut and that they won’t stand for it, but Marvel movies still make billions of dollars so…

So I don’t know what’s going to happen with AI art. I am NOT saying “all current artists are stupid and wrong, in the future history students will laugh at how stubborn they were to resist this idea”. AI art is not comparable to photography or digital painting.

With a photograph, you still need to compose the image in the frame, you need to position yourself in the real world, you need to know your equipment, whether you’re using film or digital. You also need to know how to process that photo either in the dark room or in Photoshop. These are skills the average person does not have. You cannot tell an AI “that shot was good but can you increase the contrast?” It’ll just produce a completely new image.

I read an article about an art director who was encountering difficulties as the department tried to incorporate AI. They got back first drafts of art ideas from the people employed to work with the AI, gave critique, and the second round was just completely new images that didn’t include the suggestions… because they couldn’t. AI does not understand color theory. It does not have the ability to take critique. It can’t slightly alter the layout of a design.

And all of that applies to painting too. AI (currently) can’t do what a trained art student can do. It doesn’t know that to create a sense of atmosphere you should make distant objects bluer. It doesn’t know how to use human physiology and psychology to draw a viewer’s eyes across a large painting to reveal a story.

AI also can’t replicate INTENTION - and intentionality is a HUGE part of art. WHY an artist chose those colors, that medium, that composition, those tools, why they chose to display it a certain way, why the composition is like this instead of that - all of that adds meaning to the painting that you can’t get with AI.

(Yes, there is an absolutely valid field of art critique that evaluates a piece of art on its standalone value and the message it conveys without the context of the artist’s intent, but that should be compared to the analysis that DOES include the artist’s intent! That comparison can bring about so much understanding!)

Anyway I’m going to end this post now because it has gotten WAY too long. I focused mostly on painting and photography in this post because those are my particular fields of speciality, but this applies to ALL ART. It applies to music and writing and scripting and acting and composing music and just. Everything. All art.

I don’t think there are any forms of art AI doesn’t threaten. Now granted, AI can’t currently pick up a paint brush. It can’t use a crochet needle. It can’t hold a camera. And maybe there will be some sort of return to physical media in response to AI produced digital art. Or maybe there will be a response in digital art to stylistically distinguish it from AI in a way AI can’t reproduce. I’m not sure what will happen. Maybe some proof the image was digitally painted by a real person, somehow. Or that it’s a real photo, or a real article. I saw someone mention there may end up being labels like “100% human made” like we do for organic food lol. Maybe work in progress videos or photo metadata will become more commonplace as evidence of authenticity.

Anyway, NOW I’m ending this post. Whew.

[lukolabrainrot]

Just a little palette cleanser after the wild day yesterday, and what I anticipate (might) be a pretty interestinggg week.

I want to add a few things as well:

I am not going to be talking about JD anymore unless we get SOLID confirmation something is going on with him and N. I can't stress this enough though (I WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SHOCKED IF THEY WERE DATING). If you read between the lines just a little bit with the publicly available information regarding JD and what we know about N, you would understand why I have come to that conclusion. However, I am not going to specify about that anymore here, you are free to do some research though if you would like through SM. DO NOT LEAVE ANY COMMENTS THOUGH ON ANYONE'S PAGES, PLEASEEEEE.

I want to paint a little picture for you on what I think is going on (just a theory of course):

SOOOO many things played out on a VERY public stage for L/N during the PR tour for like 6 months. And they were NOT subtle about their feelings for each other, which is why a lot of us are still here on the ship. However, the situation was pretty messy BTS (particularly for L). I talked a lot about my theories on that here. Sooooo, I think L/N might have taken some space after the London premiere to process a lot of things, and I think things were quickly unraveling with A. The Italy bday trip bs was the last straw, there was a HUGE falling out of some sort, and L and N started talking/hanging out again and something shifted (in a positive way for us Lukola fans), and tbh this shift has probably been bubbling for a while. Then N proceeded to post all those L coded crumbs (and tbf, this man is ALL over her grid and L is okay with it apparently, she's been sending a message for a while if you put the full picture together). N has ALWAYS been private about this part of her life since being in the entertainment field, but for L, she isn't. Just think about that for a second. Why might this be? I'll let you come to your own conclusions on that... So how do the JD pics fit into all of this? Well, I think this theory sums up my thoughts pretty well. I think the pics served as a distraction to take the heat off of L (and L/N) because of all the hate and attention L is still getting because of his personal life. We know N is very protective of the people she cares about (and I think she REALLY loves L and knows he's going through a really hard time rn), and so she coordinated for the pics to be released early this week to get some of the attention off of him and onto her for a change. And JD is a good friend, so agreed to it, and will get some exposure from this which could help his career a little since he doesn't have the same level of "stardom" as N. I think the pics might have also served as a statement of sorts that a lot of the hate towards L was totally unwarranted and not justified. She can do something VERY similar to his "papgate", and not get the same type of hate. Lastly, I talked about my thoughts on a lot of the recent L coded crumbs from N here. My thoughts really haven't changed. N is VERY tuned in to the fandom, and wanted us to know about her mans y'all. If she was with someone else, she wouldn't have posted WHAT she has posted since the Italy bday trip. She can definitely be a little shady sometimes, but she is NOT cruel. Why would she kick him when he's down? She wouldn't! Sooooo, everything else we've seen the last week is kind of just smoke and mirrors imo.

One more thing, please remember to critically analyze all sources of information. Look at the FULL picture of everything before jumping to any conclusions.

I've had a lot of thoughts the last couple of days, so I wanted to get it all out. Just my thoughts of course, but I don't think there's any real reason to freak out right now.

[curio-queries]

I saw Jungkook's documentary this weekend and have just a few thoughts. If you're avoiding spoilers, don't click the cut!

The Hybe Documentary Format

So...as a reminder to you all, I do not have professional expertise in the film industry. I'm just a very discerning consumer. I also haven't seen Hobi's documentary and I watched Road to D-Day while I was quite ill last year so I only vaguely remember some bits. (I'll definitely be getting back to those sooner rather than later though as research for a series of posts I'm developing.) That being said, I think we have enough data points to state that Hybe has absolutely no interest in filmmaking techniques outside of music videos.

I did mostly enjoy my experience seeing this film yesterday and I'm always grateful for any amount of footage the members are willing to share with us but this 'documentary ' was worse than Jimin's Production Diary. Any of you that managed to make it through my rambling review will know how dissatisfied I was with that.

I Am Still is not a documentary, it's a mixture of showcase footage and behind-the-scenes clips, most of which has already been divulged in the various episodes and shooting sketches on YouTube. Honestly, if you're not able to see the film, just go rewatch all of the bangtantv content for JKs solo period and the showcase and you'll be up to speed with 85% of what was in the documentary.

There are definitely some expansions to the storylines featured in the bangtantv content; mostly being anything that wasn't overtly optimistic. For example, we learn a little bit more about just how sick JK was during the Seven/3D promotions. That content likely was pulled from the bangtantv edit because it would have put a damper on the promotions and given certain 'fans' a focus to fixate their vitriol. But overall, it feels more like an extended version of existing content rather than a new work. At least JPD didn't continually feed us footage we'd seen before.

I'm someone who gets completely bothered by previews spoiling content so I didn't watch any of the promos until after I saw it and I am so glad I skipped them because most of the 'original' scenes of the film were featured in least one of them. Alas, that's a separate issue of which I'm definitely in the minority.

Was There No Structure?

Kinda. Like JPD, there is a semblance of a structure: Attempting to follow the chronology of release activities for JKs GOLDEN album through the lens of JKs staement trying to prove that he is still worthy of everything he was being hailed as during the BTS group activities but I don't feel this was successfully executed. It jumps round enough and isn't very successful in explaining the events if you didn't already know about them. The film starts with the SEVEN performance at GMA and footage that we've already seen of JK recording SEVEN, not mentioning anything about the music video or really how JK got involved with the song in the first place. The rest of the story beats have similar missing points.

They have a vague narrative with the 'I Am Still' points but that's mostly carried by subs and a couple of moments that JK mentions himself. I'm not saying it's not true or wasn't top-of-mind for JK during this process but it's not the main point of many of the moment/messages he shared with us during this time period so it feels a little disingenuous since everything else jn this film really only makes sense if you've already seen quite a lot of behind-the-scenes content.

Honestly, it makes me question the intended audience. Obviously, they know that ARMY will shell out whatever we need to when there's new content from our members but most of us will have already seen all of the bangtantv content so we are already familiar with the most of the footage in this film. I genuinely don't think this was produced in such a way to be palatable for audiences not familiar with BTS so who does that leave? Our friends and family that are peripherally aware of the content but haven't learned the basics of JKs album? ARMY with short term memories only?

But again, it seems this film was compiled by an editing team and not lead by a director with experience in crafting a documentary. The only new footage that Ican guarantee was captured with the express purpose of being included in this film was the few clips of JK talking in the practice room with the albums displayed by him. But we all know that's where all of the promo clips were gathered as well. I have issues with that approach as well but I'll leave this point alone for now unless anyone is interested.

Suffice it to say, all of these suppositions over the past year about how JKs documentary was getting special treatment or even questioning about investment in a project up front are dead. This was a product assembled with bits of what they already had completely in-house which was sold for distribution.

So, Did We Learn NOTHING?

No, there are a few Golden nuggets (see what I did there?). I can't recall everything having only seen it once (and having a rather disruptive audience - I swear there were only dozen or so ppl in my theater but I forget how obnoxious teenagers can be. I'm glad they're enjoying and supporting but we really didn't need light sticks flashing during a film and how many times does one person need to get up to answer their phone during this runtime? Three according to the row in front of mine.)

Anyway, something I thought was interesting to learn was that Standing Next To You was initially recorded the day after JK heard it for the first time. And hearing a little more about how JK yearned to perform that song definitelygot me thinking a little more about it. We can't reach any conclusions just with this little nugget but it does open the door to some theories. Like perhaps they were initially planning to have JK record two separate albums? SEVEN and 3D would be the singles of the first and JK would perform them as we saw but perhaps STNY was originally planned to be the single of the 2nd album that would release while he was in the military and thus be unable to perform it? Maybe JK loved STNY so much that everything was grouped into one album and Never Let Go was the only track held back for ms? Definitely some theorizing space to be had now.

Final thoughts?

Similar to my thoughts on the GCF: Budapest (which I feel would have had a much better reception if it had been labeled as a bangtan episode rather than a GCF), I AM Still should not have purported to be a documentary. It was much more similar to the annual Memories compilations. But the general public would not have shelled out the $25 to go to a theater to watch a Memories DVD so alas, we have our content packaged as a ~documentary~...

Did my view on the music change at all? Not because of the documentary. We're coming up on the year anniversary of GOLDEN and it's still definitely not my favorite. I completely understand why some people like it but it's just not to my taste. The overall impact falls a little flat for me. Too much breadth and not enough depth. I came into my musical soul during the 00s emo phase and will always be a sucker for music that absolutely drips in an emotional way rather than catchy songs vaguely referencing heartache and love. Again, just a matter of viewpoint.

I do think most of these songs stand much better being shuffled amongst other artists in a Playlist and several of them are significantly better when JK sang them live but I still won't be listening to them regularly. I wholeheartedly believe JK completed his task of proving himself as an extremely dedicated and versatile singer and performer. He's definitely got some solid points added to his resume after this project.

[soliloquy-dawn]

Director's commentary on Love Letters!

Would love to know a bit about your process behind writing it, too, and what goes into it :) if you want!

Hello May, thank you for the ask!!!! And what a question. I am more of a pantser when I write; I need a solid idea, or an anchor for a story, and then I will waffle on and just see where the wind takes me. But with Love Letters, I planned out this fic even before I put the metaphorical pen to paper. I wanted to touch upon certain themes and events, and it all had to line up pretty neatly to have the final effect I’m going for. The ending is a crucial part of the story for me, and it contains a lot of my own thoughts and feelings regarding the nature of storytelling and how it’s been captured in Atonement. I am changing things (in comparison to what they were in Atonement)… to maybe say something different. Or, be a bit more hopeful. Maybe. 

And when it comes to actually writing the fic… First, I gorged myself on Atonement, both the film and the book. I wanted to soak up the atmosphere, but also the writing style, the sentence structure, the cadence of it, the music. I still go back to specific fragments and reread them to get into the mood before editing. 

Then, I drafted part One, and sketched out Two and Three. I do admit, part One was probably the most fleshed out before I started writing, but I added and changed a lot while editing. For part Two and Three, hmm… I know exactly what’s going to happen, and what’s important, but I suspect I will surprise myself a bunch of times as I get through the drafting process. 

Anddd, I also tried to read up about specific historical events I want to include or reference. I am by no means trying to make this story historically accurate. I am too much of a layman for that. But I strive to capture some authenticity, or at least an impression of authenticity.  

There’s one particular book I’m reading now, about a particular historical event. Bucky and Buck will be deeply affected by that event. I don’t want to say what book so as not to spoil the fic, but one thing I’ll say is that it’s not Dunkirk, but something… of similar caliber. 

And here's a wee cover I made recently, just for fun. Thank you soo much for the ask again, my dear.

[useless-catalanfacts]

The Catalan authors who were kept out of the Nobel Literature Prize for being Catalan

Did you know that there have been a handful of Catalan writers who were candidates to win the Nobel Literature Prize, but because of Spanish interference they never did?

The Nobel Prize discloses its debate and reasoning process 50 years after each edition. This means that we already know the details of what happened in the earliest editions of this Prize, which was started in 1901.

The name of the Catalan play-writer Àngel Guimerà (author of Marta of the Lowlands, Mar i cel, La filla del mar...), whose works have been translated to many languages and played all around Europe and the Americas, with many film and opera adaptations, sounded often in the Nobel committee. He was presented as a candidate to win the Nobel Prize 17 times in a row, since 1907 until his death in 1924. In the editions of 1917 and 1919, many were convinced he would win. However, the declassified documents show why he didn't: as written by the man who was then president of the Nobel Committee, Haralg Härne, Guimerà wasn't given the prize "to avoid hurting the national pride of the Spanish". In 1919, Härne writes that the objective of the Nobel Prize is to promote peace and thus to award Guimerà and show support for a minority culture would be to encourage internal conflict (🤦). The Academy decided that they couldn't give a prize to Guimerà "before awarding another writer who expresses himself in the most ancient noble language of the country" (weird way to mean "the official language", aka Spanish, because they surely didn't mean Basque). In summary, if a Catalan is to be considered, he must always be second to a Spanish man. Even when the Catalan is, in the words of the Nobel Academy, "the most eminent writer of our times", he can never be considered an equal, always must be behind.

Àngel Guimerà wrote in the Catalan language, which was discriminated against by Spanish and considered an enemy by the Spanish government and much of Spanish society. Guimerà was a firm defender of the right to use the Catalan language and that nobody should be forced to speak the imperial languages instead of their own, and was involved with the political movement for the rights of Catalan people. For this reason, every time the famous Swedish academy was considering Guimerà, the Spanish Royal Academy of Language (RAE) fought it with all its might. Nowadays, Guimerà's theatre plays continue to move thousands of spectators every year.

The same happened again with the poet Josep Carner. In the 1960s, Josep Carner was on exile, because he was a Catalan poet writing in Catalan and who stood against the fascist dictatorship of Spain, which persecuted the Catalan language and identity. Famous writers from around the world, including T. S. Eliot, François Mauriac, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Roger Caillois, supported Josep Carner's candidacy to win the Nobel, but the Spanish Government did everything possible to obstruct it. We don't know if Carner would have won or not, but he was deprived of even trying because of the Spanish government's hatred of Catalan.

Something similar seems to have happened between the 1970s and 1990s to three other Catalan poets: Salvador Espriu, J. V. Foix, and Miquel Martí i Pol, where they did not get any support from the Spanish authorities, so we don't know how it would have ended up.

Another example of what it means to have a state actively working against you because of bigotry against your cultural group.

Sources: book Det litterära Nobelpriset by the president of the Nobel Committee Kjell Espmarck, Pep Antoni Roig (El Nacional), Joan Lluís-Lluís (El Punt Avui), and Jordi Marrugat (Institut Ramon Llull).

[feroshgirlsims]

As storytellers, there are so many pieces of our craft and I'm curious how you would rank each step of the process. Rank each of the following on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 lowest, 5 highest):

Setting up the scene (building sets, decorating, etc),

Posing the sims (creating / find poses, and setting up the sims),

Styling the sims (cc hunting, time spent in cas),

Writing the dialogue/story,

Editing the photos.

Send to three other story simblrs and get to know more about each others favorite and least favorite part of this crazy process!

AHHH!!! This is such a good question (I think @aheathen-conceivably asked me, too so thanks!). I am 10,000 years behind on my asks and just everything generally. But I'm finally coming back so let me blab for a second.

LOWEST (1) - Setting up the scene (building sets, decorating, etc).

I am a terrible builder. I'm a slightly better decorator, but in general this is just the worst part to me. I am constantly in awe of the creativity here with making sets that feel alive. I'm trying to step my game up, and be a bit more thoughtful with clutter, but its hard. I also do a ton of gameplay so I tend to focus on lots being functional. But 95% of the time if you see a beautiful lot in my story it wasn't me, babe.

SECOND LOWEST (2) - Posing the sims (creating/find poses, and setting up the sims).

I mean, this is sort of a love/hate situation. I love when I can see something clearly in my head and create it. And my god, posemakers in this community are KILLING THE GAME. But setting up scenes can be tedious, particularly when they involve a lot of sims. There's a lot of hiding empty lots with odd angles and piling on deco sims needed to counteract all the ways the game kind of limits you. I also just make things harder on myself by obsessing over details that only I care about, LOL. For example, I think of Vlad as being very tall and almost feline in the way he moves. I think of Alice as being sort of short and full of energy. I imagine Akira to be very graceful, but also kind of a dude's dude. He is an asshole who definitely manspreads on the train. I try to make sure their poses consistently match that, which like...I hope it comes across, but in truth I prolly just agonize over it bc I'm unwell.

MID (3) - Styling the sims (cc hunting, time spent in cas)

I, a custom content hoe, am often overwhelmed by choice. And similar to posing, I spend a stupid amount of time thinking about what each character would reasonably wear. Also, my toxic trait is forgetting about the weather in game. The number of times I've filmed a shot and put Vlad in a tank top bc its cute only to remember that it's like, fucking October in my story, is too high. I actually literally did it in this chapter and could not be bothered to reshoot it, lol.

GETTING GOOD (4) - Editing the photos.

I have recently fallen back in love with this again. I use reshade so my editing tends to me more about creating supernatural effects or adding funny lil emojis or thought bubbles. I've always loved anime and comics so I'm trying to bring that style more into my story so I can really convey how I experience it in my head.

THE BEST BAYBEEE (5) - Writing the dialogue/story

I think about these pretend pixels every day. Even when I burnt out, I love thinking about their dialogue or jotting down ideas for a scene. Writing just feels good. It scratches an itch in my brain. It is, by far, my fave part.

[sirfrogsworth]

Most of my photos were from 2012 to 2016. I have learned a lot since then. My photo restoration hobby has improved my image editing skills in general. And I was curious if I tried editing one of my photos from scratch if I could improve upon my original edit from years ago.

This is my friend Nicole.

( @nicolebelongs I hope you don't mind being my guinea pig for this.)

This is just a direct output of the original RAW file. RAW files are typically flat by nature so you have more latitude when processing and editing.

This is my original finished edit from 2016.

I actually made a pretty big lighting mistake when shooting this photo. A beauty dish can cause harsh reflections on makeup and so Nicole's forehead bounced all that light directly into my camera. I was still learning back then and didn't know anything about makeup. All that was required was angling the dish a few degrees up or down, which feels like a pretty silly mistake all these years later.

And here is my 2023 edit. I did not reference the 2016 image until after I finished.

The main priority was the glare on the forehead, but I think this is much more balanced overall as well. I also tried to fix the weird neck shadow and the lack of light in the eyes. I probably should have used a reflector originally, but thankfully Photoshop has a solution to almost any photography blunder. I removed some vellus hairs on the edge of the face, as that is not something you would notice in real life, but the camera and lights can exaggerate them. I'd also like to say I love the new remove tool. Getting rid of flyaway hairs was such a monotonous pain in the ass before and that thing just zaps them with a click.

I am also trying to learn new editing techniques I was never good at. There is a retouching technique called "dodging & burning" that I had trouble with back in the day. Mostly because finding advanced tutorials can be difficult. Much of the content on YouTube focuses on beginner techniques.

Dodging & burning was originally innovated by Ansel Adams back in the days of film. He would block portions of his negatives for a second or two so those areas would develop darker. Or he would let sections expose longer so they would be brighter. It was basically analog Photoshop. You can see a neat video of his darkroom here.

While Ansel mostly did landscapes, portrait photographers of the digital age utilize dodging & burning to help bring out dimension in the face. It's quite similar to makeup contouring, actually. It is very hard to perfectly light every nook and cranny on a face and many portrait lenses are slightly telephoto. Longer lenses compress faces to remove distortion, but you end up losing three-dimensionality as a tradeoff.

My first attempt dodging and burning did not go well but I played with this photo for a few hours trying many different approaches and I think I landed on something I like. But I have been staring at it for way too long, so it is hard for me to look at it objectively.

I do wish we could all look at this on the same display. Green is notoriously difficult to keep consistent from screen to screen.

In any case, there are a dozen subtle things I did with my upgraded knowledge that may not be noticeable individually, but I'm hoping it all adds up to a better finished result.

And I guess we'll see if there is a consensus regarding the dodging & burning. Either good, bad, or just... different.

[myobsessionsspace]

Hi! This is a reply to the anon asking about Jungkook and his songwriting process. I work in a creative field and have many friends who work in creative fields so that has a big influence on how I view this topic.

The first thing I want to talk about is how every person has a completely different creative process. But one thing I have noticed is that contrary to popular belief most people do not get inspiration from hard times or going through difficult experiences. For most people the inspiration comes from having grown as a person, the conversations and things that helped them during those times or from totally different things. Most of the time feeling bad can block you from feeling inspiration or being creative alltogether. And I believe this is also true for Jungkook. I don't think he is a person who gets inspired by difficult life experiences.

Another thing is that from what I have seen he seems to get a lot of inspiration and joy from the process of making itself. This is how inspiration works for a lot of people. People get ideas by working very hard, doing other parts of the project and practicing a lot. Inspiration is not something that just happens most of the time, it's something that you work on. It's not as romantic as getting inspired by big life events or getting struck by an idea but it is very fun.

It makes complete sense to me how he talked about wanting to focus on how to use his voice and the more technical aspects of making music. I also think he is not someone who is creative in a language focussed way. I don't think he is a storyteller like RM. RM likes to make people think and get them engaged in thinking about life, society and other big topics.

I think the thing that Jungkook enjoys the most is how he can make people feel and that he can make them forget about everything for a while and help them really be in the moment. That makes him have different goals in his songwriting and creative process. Lyrics and what the song is about are not his main focus and he is comfortable letting other people do that part for him. His focus is more on how he can express the feelings of the song in the best way (using his voice, instruments, tempo etc.). And also I think that he is most interested in and talented at the parts that are seen as less interesting by a lot of people. Or that are more behind the scenes and less visible to the average person.

He is very good in expressing himself in other ways than language. The most important ways being visual (think about his editing and photography), through dance and through sound. He loves singing and playing around with his voice and he loves dancing and performing.

And he does express himself alot. He shows his feelings on his face and with his whole body and he seems to really be himself in every situation. But I think he is someone who really lives in the moment and he doesn't dwell on his feelings once he is done feeling them. I don't think he is someone who processes their feelings through language or talking. And I would not be surprised if it takes him a very long time to process his feelings. He probably does it on his own when he is somewhere he feels safe and comfortable. So deep conversations about his feelings and thoughts is probably something we will never see from him.

Maybe it's because I am very similar to him in a lot of ways but to me he doesn't seem hard to understand at all. Everything he says and does makes so much sense to me. I have the easiest time understanding him out of all the members. Hope that helps!

in reference to this ask

Yes, yes, yes!⬆️⬆️⬆️

Thank you lovely for your thoughts and insights.

I was also thinking about the creative that Jungkook is and how he also uses film, photography, art of different mediums to express himself too.

There’s so much that we can add, and I appreciate you and anyone else adding to this conversation.

Thank you 💜

[lafiametta]

Definable agree with you about the script. Baker has said it was written in a way that allowed the actors room for interpretation. I think Ani is quite similar in script and movie because he was consulting with Mikey Madison as he was writing it and taking in ideas she had. With the other characters I think they became more developed when the actors got there (Madison mentioned that she pictured the Ani/Vanya relationship differently when she read the script because Mark played him much more endearingly). With Igor specifically , Baker's said that they didn't want to show their cards too early with him, that he'd be the one to sympathetic with Ani (probably why the draft has him more similar to Yuras character in Compartment no.6) but Borisovs performance was probably subtle enough that they could soften him a bit. And Yura has said in interviewsthe characterisation of Igorwas mainly born on set.

Also, Baker has also said a few times that he didn't notice many times Igor looks at Ani during filming because he left it up to Borisov and Madison to respond in return. He's said it wasn't until he started editing that he realised "ohh there's something very special here". I think it's so interesting how editing can make a storyline that basically was born on set look like it was meant to be there all along.

So basically yes, the films interpretation of the characters is the one we're supposed to go with. (If you couldn't tell I'm majorly hyperfixating on this movie lol).

Seriously, Anon, let's just majorly hyperfixate on it together — as you can tell, I'm already in too deep!

The more I read, the more I really appreciate the way that Sean Baker seems to collaborate with his actors, not just about the characters and their arcs, but about aspects of the plot and even the deeper interpretation about what's going on between the lines. Realizing that the editing could subtly transform the story into something different (and I would argue more powerful) makes it clear that Baker was really open to the process and allowed things to happen in a creative and organic (and also, it sounds like, improvisational) way.

When you watch the film, it's so fascinating to realize how often we're seeing direct shots of Igor, simply watching Ani or reacting to things she's doing (or are being done to her). He's not doing or saying anything, often he's just in the background, and therefore there's no reason for the camera to be on him, but it serves to emphasize his growing connection to Ani, the way that he's looking at (and out for) her as the movie progresses. Even the shot on the tarmac with Ivan, which theoretically should center on the two people talking, Ivan is mostly cut out of the frame, while Igor is fully visible, watching silently over Ani's shoulder. This is the way you do storytelling without having to hit the audience over the head with it. Because you're right — it really does feel like it was meant to be there all along.