rowanwould

[rowanwould]

A ranger and her jackalope friend! Wanted to paint something fantasy but make it ~*~Western~*~

Did a painting mentorship with Paul Scott Canavan! It was a load of fun and I learned a LOT. Devastating how much good references, studies, and time actually help with artwork (jk but for real)

[rowanwould]

please dont torture yourself w reddit. it has some of the saddest and angriest ppl on this planet. its not worth it

but what about this

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Do you know anything about the team behind all the research for the show and their process? How is it so deep, so respectful? I'm amazed looking at your blog, but as a writer/worldbuilder I'm shocked at the depth it has, and terrified of how it would've been doing it on schedule for a show.

I have a post about ATLA’s amazing cultural consultants here. Mike and Bryan were also able to visit China and take inspiration directly from its many historical and cultural sites as well. ATLA was a very collaborative work. From what I’ve read, it seems like the production had a decent number of Asian-American staff members, as well as possessing an overseas Korean animation team. Bryke worked very closely with the Korean team, even living in the country for a few months during the production of the pilot episode, and you can definitely see Korean elements in many details of the story.

ATLA is not a perfect work of cultural representation, but it’s a great example of “you get what you put in”. The cultural details that it gets right are because it sought out people immersed in those cultures. The Air Nomads and Water Tribe being so comparatively underdeveloped is very much a product of the creative team not reaching out to the peoples they were taking inspiration from.

Finally, sometimes ATLA just gets stuff right by accident. For example, Bryke wanted Azula’s crew (+Zuko) to play “volleyball but with kicks” on Ember Island, not realizing that’s actually a real sport in Asia til a Korean staff member informed them of this. Katara’s hair loopies were also a happy accident, as they were mainly drawn that way to frame her face without being difficult to animate. Bryke only later realized it was an actual Inuit hairstyle. Or when they do a throwaway joke about characters eating weird food, many times that food is actually a real dish or medicine.

[rowanwould]

Andor is honestly one of the only pieces of more mainstream Star Wars media (so none of the little comics and very very few of the novels) I've seen since the Prequels that REALLY encapsulates the themes of non-attachment and everything that means in the way George Lucas truly intended. The only other thing I've seen that is its equal is the Obi-Wan Kenobi show.

And this makes me want to discuss Timm Karlo.

Yeah, Timm, the character everybody remembers most from Andor right?

That's what I thought.

This is Timm. He was Bix's boyfriend in the first three episodes of Andor. He seems to be pretty normal but he gets jealous when Cassian shows up because Cassian and Bix used to date and he can tell the two of them are cooking up some kind of secret together that he's not involved in. He decides to cover up his jealousy with fear for Bix's safety because Cassian is clearly in some kind of trouble and eventually ends up ratting Cassian out to PreMor security behind Bix's back. This results in PreMor invading Ferrix and getting Bix captured and beaten. Timm himself is murdered when he tries to help Bix.

All we ever get to see of Timm is that he's an insecure little asshole whose actions nearly get Cassian and Bix killed. He's an antagonist in this story.

But Bix loved him. He seems like a fairly average dude before this and presumably treats Bix fairly well outside of this particular incident. He's not a villain, he's just... a dude who lets fear of losing the woman he loves consume him to the point of making a REALLY stupid choice and it costs him everything. But that choice turns him INTO a villain for Cassian. Cassian will now always remember Timm as the man who betrayed him and wanted him dead. Cassian will always remember Timm by the selfishness of his final choice. That's the legacy Timm leaves behind in the end. Bix mourns him, but even Bix recognizes that Timm fucked up and nearly cost herself and Cassian their lives.

And if any of that sounds kind-of familiar, it's because it should. It's Anakin. Timm makes the Anakin choice. He wasn't a villain by default. He wasn't a villain his entire life. He was a normal dude who made one really awful choice out of fear and it ended up being the choice that defined him. He had the capacity for both good and bad in him and he chose to act on the bad and it was the last choice he ever made.

And this choice is what really screws up Ferrix, it calls down PreMor security on them which is what causes the massive screw-up when they try to capture Cassian and Luthen and that gains the attention of the ISB agent in charge of Ferrix as well as Dedra Meero who ultimately brings an entire battalion of stormtroopers and officers to occupy Ferrix. Ferrix gets far far worse as a result of Timm's one choice made out of insecurity in his relationship.

But it also ultimately leads to Ferrix realizing that enough is enough and they rise up and riot and throw the Empire out of their home. It helps push Maarva into joining a rebellion at the end of her life and making that recording that inspires the people to fight back. Maarva says that the Empire has been creeping in like a disease while they slept. And if Timm hadn't made the choice that took their situation from tolerable to intolerable, maybe Maarva and the people of Ferrix never would've bothered to fight back. If Cassian had been able to just silently slip out of town with no one being the wiser, Ferrix would've just kept going on as it had been.

None of this means Timm gets to claim credit for Ferrix and Maarva's own choices, obviously, but much like Anakin, the selfish choices he makes lead to unintended good things happening down the line, too. Anakin's selfishness leads to his relationship with Padme which ultimately creates Luke and Leia who, together, are the ones that manage to bring down the Empire for good. Anakin doesn't get any credit for how Luke and Leia turned out obviously, or the things they do that cause the Empire to fall, but they wouldn't have existed without Anakin's selfishness.

Timm's choice makes Ferrix worse, it calls down the Empire, but it also leads to the push that ultimately pushes Ferrix into rebellion.

Timm makes Anakin's choice. He's the villain of Cassian's story, but he is not WHOLLY a villain because Andor tells us that no one is ever JUST a villain or JUST a hero. People will always be people and that means they all have the capacity for both selfishness and selflessness within them. Timm loses himself to his fear for just long enough to destroy everything he cared about. Maarva chooses to stand up rather than run. Bix chooses to persevere in the face of impossible odds. Luthen gives up his morals to try to create a future for the rest of the galaxy. Mon Mothma sells her family for democracy. Cassian has to give up his dream of a normal happy life and settle for taking control of his own life.

And this is what makes Andor one of the best pieces of Star Wars media I've seen in a LONG time. It doesn't have any Jedi in it, it doesn't have any Mandalorian super soldiers, it doesn't have any Sith or Inquisitors or witches. It's just a group of people from different walks of life all having to figure out what matters most to them in the end. Some of them make the selfish choice and some of them rise above and make the selfless choice. It takes all of the themes that we've gotten from Star Wars via the Jedi and Sith conflicts and applies them to the little people, too. It's not JUST the Jedi and Sith who have to abide by those thematic narrative rules. Everybody else does, too, actually. Timm would never have become a Sith because of his choices, Dedra Meero and Syril Karn are never going to be Sith, but they can still become villains in someone else's story everything they claimed to care about can come crashing down as the result of one selfish choice.

THAT'S Star Wars. THAT'S what it's all about. THAT'S why Andor feels like Star Wars should to me without a single Force user showing up while something like the Ahsoka show feels like the opposite of a Star Wars story despite all of its fan service and nostalgia bait. Andor gets it. Andor took the time to understand the core of Star Wars even when telling a Star Wars story in a very different way.

[rowanwould]

if parks and rec was still being made they’d do a bit where ron swanson has to wear a pronouns name tag and it’d just be “???/???” And it’d cut to a talking head of him going

“I’ve been a fool all this time. It’s bad enough the government knows my name, but now they want to know my gender? So I’m not letting them know my preferred pronouns. As far as I’m concerned, no one in this building should refer to me at all.”

[rowanwould]

Won't you help me sober up,

Growing up it made me numb,

And I want to feel something again… (x)

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not peter, but elsa! elsa spidersona…? uhhh

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i hurt myself with Big Jack by Pet Foolery (can find on instagram) again and no one seems to have posted the whole comic so. here. someone reminded me of it and i tracked it down. gonna go cry in a corner now.

[rowanwould]

◆ CALEB WIDOGAST ◆

[rowanwould]

To The People I Pass On The Train At Night - Jordan Bolton

My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is now available to pre-order! Get it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

[rowanwould]

🇨🇳

x

[rowanwould]

Have you ever looked closely at a car windshield?

The edge of the glass is painted where it is glued to the car but it has these small dots between the clear and painted glass.

These are there for a reason. When the sun hits the glass the painted areas and the clear areas will absorb heat at different rates. This causes the glass to expand and contract differently putting stress on the glass.

These dots help the glass to warm up more evenly over a larger area so the glass does not suffer stress that could cause it to spontaneously explode.

Fun fact: the Tesla cybertruck doesn’t have these.

Yes, the glass will spontaneously crack or explode in the sun.

[rowanwould]

Sometimes the rats in my brain come together and start yelling “YEARNING” and in trying to appease them I ask “FOR WHAT” but they are too small so all they can say is “YEARNING” which is a very big word for such a tiny creature, even collectively

[rowanwould]

a watched nut never busts. or something. i dont fucking know what you people find funny anymore. 9/11.

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Look I have zero excuses for this, but the idea popped into my head and now it's in your head, sorry