#70's films just make me want to draw

[xhylm]

raggedy sibling frame redraw !!

[dorihey]

Today is the birthday of the late Ed Asner. Many are familiar with him as the voices of Carl Fredricksen from Up, Santa from Elf, and Hudson from Gargoyles, as well as Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the aptly named, Lou Grant (series).

Back in the mid 2000's, my family and I were staying at a very large expensive house that belonged to friends of my parents as guests. They had a larger cable package than we did back at home, and they had ToonDisney. I remember seeing Gargoyles while staying there, on the "Hangin' with the Heroes" block in the evening. I remember seeing this show very vaguely as a younger kid, but I must not have been older than 6 or 7 or so given the original air dates.

I was totally enamored with these characters almost instantly. I hopped on their upscale internet, and immediately perused various Disney media sites at the time and started going down the rabbit hole with what little material the internet had back in like 2004 about the show. I learned about the cast, Greg Weisman's blog Station 8, and somehow convinced my parents to upgrade our cable so I could watch it. I even made a Neopets Fanpage about the show, and I have no idea if it's still around.

I don't have a lot of specific memories about Hudson being my favorite, or even having a particularly verbose knowledge of the show back them, but I DO remember becoming familiar and fond of Ed Asner, seeing a teaser for Up, learning he was in it, and that detail making it NECESSARY for me to watch it on release day.

I remember the evening before watching Up, and enjoying it, but I rewatched it with my mom a few days later. I am not sure what was different here, but I became OBSESSED. I joined a Pixar fan site, became a highly active member, and began absolutely marathoning this film. I also spent 5 hours one evening with a mechanical pencil, very little drawing skill, and drew this. (apologies, the picture is 14 years old and washed out)

To be clear, this was EXTREMELY out of nowhere. I had never drawn anything remotely this detailed before. So I (quite ignorantly, but still strongly) decided to change college majors and pursue art. Still workin' on that one...

Down the line, I ultimately watched Up in theaters 50 times, held movie nights for the fansite over Skype, made multiple forum signatures for myself and other members, and even got invited to Pixar, and met a lot of Pixar leadership (albeit briefly for most).

At the center of this though, Ed Asner was responsible for me gravitating to these characters. I've been pretty consistently enamored with his brand of wholesome curmudgeonry.

(I just made up that word, and I like it, so it's real now)

In any case, I've always felt a bit odd for having an attachment to an actor that hit his acting stride while being middle-aged in the 70s, 20 years before I was even alive - like I'm the only person my age that even knows this guy existed.

I had never gotten to meet Ed, but I did make an attempt shortly before he passed. It didn't work out, but his son Matt runs a charity organization called The Ed Asner Family Center that focuses on supporting individuals and families with autism and neurodivergence. I was fortunate enough to join an early screening of Dug Days before it released on Disney + thanks to a fundraiser by the center, including a Zoom Q&A with Ed. The thing I noticed during the call is that Ed was so immensely quick-witted, absolutely hilarious, and would not leave his piece unsaid. He had an astoundingly magnetic personality. It wasn't open mic, but I managed to get a question through - "What was it that got you into acting?"

Jonas Rivera, the Producer of Up was moderating the call and Ed about verbally trampled the guy by the time he was getting the last few words out, and he knew exactly what he wanted to say.

I don't have the exact words, but it boiled down to "escapism" - which was a bit shocking to me. You've got a former president of SAG, who'd been acting for longer than I have been a living person, and he was immediately compelled to tell everyone that the reason he got into showbusiness is to run from the world and its problems. It was remarkably humble.

Ed passed away exactly a week later. I couldn't eat for 2 days, I was so distraught.

I highly recommend that folks check out a lot of the acting Ed has done. He's absolutely brilliant, and one of the most fun people to watch. He was intimidatingly witty, and yet seemed like the guy who would talk to just about anyone. And then make them laugh their sides off.

I haven't shared my deep admiration for Ed too often other than with folks closest to me, but Ed Asner was a precious gem of a human being, and embodies a lot of things I think the world - particularly folks of the male persuasion - should have a bit more of.

Here's to you, Ed. Have a happy birthday up there for us, big guy. We love ya. <3

(side note, the portrait at the top, I drew to commemorate his first birthday after he passed in 2021. The picture at the bottom was drawn, but not adequately finished imo, about 2 weeks before he left us. I need to give it a proper redo someday)

[simphq]

Hi so im posting my storys from wattpad to here x wattpad: 3mily_xx

Taron Egerton Imagine! Pt1

Dating Taron does but doesn't feel like a relationship. Get what i mean? Anyway heres some bullet points on  what dating Taron would be like!

⚠️Im British so some words may be different for you⚠️

• Life as a actor means working non stop and having very little time to yourself,but when you and Taron have time to spend together  it usually involves a day in bed.Cuddling up with one and other and watching a film of your your choice,you would also get you and Tarons fav takeout!

•You would visit the sets that Taron is working on which means meeting new people and making a-lot of friends!

•You and Taron have similar friends like Richard madden,Jamie Bell,Sofie Cookson ect!

•You and Taron have alot of different nicknames for each other!

Tarons nicknames for you:

•Love

•darling,(y,n,n)

•baby

•angel

•sweetheart

•cariad~ welsh for love/lover

•precious

Your nicknames for Taron!

•bubs

•honey

•dear

•Love

•T

•boo

•Hubby~if/when ur married

•There is always music playing weather its some songs from 70's or 80's. Or David Bowie or Elton John or even The Beatles,Taron and you always sing along.And of course Dancing that may or maybe lead to a make out session.

•When Taron is alway filming your feel a little sad and alone,But Taron makes sure to call or text you when he can telling you c everything thats he has been doing and sending pictures of his costumes!(Some make you burst out laughing)😂

•Taron is a family man! He loves his mum,step dad and little sisters and They love him too! His sisters adore you and look up to you lot.When you and Taron visit you spend lots of time with them all, weather thats having walks along the beach on a warm summers day or playing Mario cart with them in the winter, or drawing one and other You all have so much fun and Taron adores to watch you laugh and play with his younger sisters. It Makes him want to start a family with you but he knows not is not the right time!

•Taron and you always make each-other laugh

•When his mum calls him she always asked how you are and wants to speak to you! She think of you as a daughter.

•Taron trys to teach you welsh even though you can't remember most of it! You can remember and pronounce some things for example

•Rwy'n dy garu di~I love you

•babi-baby

•cwtsh~cuddle/hugs

•Annwyl~dear/darling

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

(Authors notes)

Hi hope you enjoyed what ever that was lol, I can do a part 2 if wanted just let me know in the comments! Requests are open and thank you for reading! :D

————————————————————

[kalechipslives]

sorekara setting design

Here are some notes on the development of SOREKARA's style and presentation. If you couldn't already tell, SK takes a lot of inspiration from 70's/80's anime, Nobody's Boy Remi being the reference point for much of it. I've always respected Dezaki for his monumental work so I've always wanted to pay tribute to it (especially the early stuff). I don't think I was as successful as I'd like to have been, but alas! There is still more to come! So without further ado!

I was just talking about Dezaki , but now I shall talk about something completely different. To set the tone, I created the cat and the trolley setting first. The Girl's design should be plenty obvious (lol). But the background here I paid special attention to... I find the paints of Night on the Galactic Railroad to be very unique. They have a line less, airbrushed quality to them that blends in surprisingly well with the characters. I did some research and studied 児玉喬夫 Takao Kodama's work, as they were credited with setting design for this film as well as Genji Monogatari. Actually, if you look at Genji Monogatari's backgrounds, they have the exact same airbrushed quality! I had never done a background like this before (I am certainly not an environmental artist) but I think I did a fairly good job of it.

...I immediately switched gears and without thinking, went back to Dezaki works. I can't say I was very faithful at all. The night sky is easy to paint, with it's notable color spray and paint blots, but I diverged quite a bit with the watercolor textures. Shichiro Kobayashi is the artist I looked to the most, and this project made me appreciate him more than ever before. Just looking at his paints gets me emotional... The vibrant colors, the dramatic angles, you can just feel his reverence for life overflowing from the work. There really isn't anyone better. I need to study more if I'm to capture even a fraction of his skill. That being said, I did make sure to animate the backgrounds slightly with the sparkles on the water-- The reflection of light on water is my favorite to draw! Also, flowers are a very important motif (for various reasons, ohohoho). Kobayashi seemed to love drawing flowers, the paint around the edges give is a delicate look. Actually, if you look at the textbox...

Instead of full-color CGs, I opted to use "postcard memories". This was a technique Dezaki used where he would show a detailed, scratchy-lined illustration to highlight important moments instead of fully animating them. It creates a really memorable image that draws out all of your emotions! I tried to emulate them (the more single-toned ones, that is) for the game. It was 1/3 Dezaki worship, 1/3 time-saving technique, and 1/3 excuse to draw lots of scratchy lines. I love scratchy lines. This way, I could make a lot of memorable shots that were visually interesting without overworking myself.

As another note, I looked to Akio Sugino's character art when drawing. The characters don't really look like Sugino characters, but I was emulating his shading technique with (once-again) the scratchy lines. Ah, I was in heaven. Looking at his older work, the linework is hardly ever clean-- but the rough, hand-drawn edge gives everything a tactile quality and the strong anatomy makes everyone so gorgeous. It's like an engraving come to life.

Finally, the anime effects! On the left you can see soothat before his values are adjusted (very dark, isn't he?) and on the right you can see he is in-game, values adjusted with a more appropriate "anime" look. This is because anime cells are put onto a CRT screen, so they end up looking very different. I created an auto action in CSP to adjust the color grating and line quality of every asset before popping them into the game for the chromatic aberration to take effect. The lines are slightly crunched a blurrier compared to the original. It gives it a more "physical" look. The colors are fixed up-- you'll see there is no pure black. If you look at a physical anime cell, you'll see they more often than not do not include pure black. There is usually a tint of green or red in there.

The chromatic aberration filter... I don't know how noticeable it is to the average player, but the game actually has a built-in filter that creates a slight "chroma" effect to emulate the look of frames through a crt/light. This means the red + blue + green values of the entire screen are split up and adjusted to layer slightly off from each other, giving it a little visual interest. It was AN EXTREME doozy to put in, with my poor programmer coding it and re-coding it until the end. It seemed simple at first, but there are parts where the game zooms in which totally broke the filter! It made out eyes bleed! But it was repaired in the end, so blessing upon you, Sandy. You saved my life.

The reason why I looked to Ie Naki Ko/Nobody's Boy Remi specifically is because that's where I feel the most "pure" energy from. It is a show that leans incredibly hard on it's techniques to get by but because of that it really embodies what I love about old anime-- It has a selfless reverence for its subject that drives you to watch and surrender your heart. Dezaki's powerful directing, Sugino's gorgeous drawings and Kobayashi's majestic paintings come together to make a work that shines. The setting is truly at the forefront with the characters getting lost in the grandeur. That's the attitude I had with SOREKARA: "There are things much greater than us, so isn't it wonderful that we are able to see them side-by-side?" There are many animation techniques that are cost-effective while still being utterly beautiful, I would love to copy them someday but I wasn't able to go that far yet. At least not in the demo. There's still time, I suppose... Studying limited animation from old anime is actually extremely useful when creating visual novels. Understanding the placement of cells and their layering/movement has given me even more ideas for stories!

I ended up going on a rant about anime again ^^" But it's so beautiful, you must now understand my heart going into the work. I always think of my characters and their journey, of course, but before that I think of the setting. I want the player to experience beautiful and mysterious things alongside their traveling companions. There is still so much more to make. I hope to incorporate more Dezaki-style techniques in this and future works. Please remember the true message of my works.... Not that love finds a way, or that your connections can transform your world...it's that....anime is very, very cool.

Thank you for reading 🙇🏽‍♂️

[erectedingold]

Tragic Ending

To be honest I always thought I'd have a tragic ending, and still do.

Never thought I'd have that good ending and I guess that's why I feel obsessed with the idea of a "Tragic ending" whenever I make films.

The idea that no matter the importance of the character from side to main that they should have a tragic ending the same way I believe I'll have one. Something about that sadness just makes a good story to me.

For example, If I get an Oscar I feel like I'll become a drug addict (sorry this is a little crazy) or just become mentally unstable because to have such a large platform I feel like you have to have something with you. When I do graduate from high school and start making active pushes onto my film maker dream I joke that "I'll end up in *big city* homeless with a dog and shopping cart." Because I don't know how possible it will be for me to become that film maker and creative that I want to be.

I also think that a tragic ending is what MAKES good story telling to me, you grow with a character from the start to the end through the good and the bad and then for all of that to be for nothing is so gut wrenching to me.

I had this idea for a short or feature about two teens that fall in love in the 70's called "Love Hotline" I wrote that with the idea of them breaking up in the end anyways because during that time I always thought if I got into a relationship it wouldn't work.

(I'm currently in one right now and I love her so much and that's why I'm lowkey thinking of changing that script if I ever go back to working on it because she has showed me that not everything has to have that tragic ending and I truly feel as though she is my person and that I do love her a lot, I know we're both kids and that I could be getting ahead of myself (Tbh a lie I don't think that I love her so much and if we do end then all my shit will have a tragic ending and I'll never love again) but I want to spend my life with her so bad)

I just don't see a good ending for me I guess, I don't know why but it's so strong in my head that my ending to my life or whatever will be tragic. I don't think it's a bad thing or that I'm sad about it or that I'm PRAYING that it's a tragic ending (I'm not suicidal btw I'm fine) but that just some how I feel either I reach my dreams then it ends badly, or I never make it and spend my life always trying to chase that dream.

I guess that's why I'm obsessed with this idea of a "Tragic ending" in my work, whether it be short films, writings, poems, or drawings / art this idea of a "Tragic ending" is one that is strong in my mind.

Thank you for reading this is my first little blog post type thing and I hope to make more, I never really got tumblr before but I'm a little bit of a frank ocean fixation and he got me on here lol.

- Diego

[the-ghost-gardren]

(everything is vauge as fuck about bitb so dont worry about spoilers!! )

Now that im like- finally calm, god I loved everything about this so much. As someone who adores the horror genre, gore, violence and the horrors just in general, Blood In The Bayou was really such a fucking treat for me.

I think it's mostly because a lot of the time since I've been exposed and numbed to this from a young age (see me at like 11 watching an open heart surgery whilst eating my dinner and commenting about blood squirts to my mum) that i really enjoy and take a shine to the horror genre as it's such a favourite piece of media of mine. And with BITB being set in the 80's and my love of the characters of 'The 70's show' has really tied everything together so nicely.

Most of the time things are predictable, in novella format or even film format and they just...are obvious. Either because it's a film trying to cash in on a trope or just something in general that's overused or obvious.

I think i can say with everyone that I fucking ADORED the whole leadup and the reveal to what happens and what the creatures are and how they work. I really thought it was gonna be some boring ass cult thing like 'The Babysitter' after the first episode, just with some nice extra layers of Charlie's gore storytelling, and perhaps some 'Stranger Things' drawings too from when Rand was piecing things together and the whole meeting up to play dnd stuff.

But honestly I've been plesantly surprised about how great just...everything has been. It's got this great original feel with how everything's told and all the not even real red herrings and the tiny tiny hints in galloway's map are just great. Every small piece that was mentioned towards The Big Reveal in our final episode about one of our boys was so SO great and all the small steps placed that were pieced together by their PC made everything make sense. so good.

Honestly this is the first time that, in a horror setting, I've actually not known what was going to happen. (Well, bar the final 'boss' of the whole thing. That was kinda obvious but there was nobody better who it could be and it slots in greatly.) Because of how dnd works mainly and the unpreditability of rolls actually adding to the thrill, and the great reactions and storytelling between the cast spliting up and our guide and narrator's own workings of storytelling.

If you're NOT part of the patreon and want a short, good 11 odd hours of a podcast to tide over halloween to november? highly reccomend going into it if you're fine with descriptive gore & body horror (especially in the last two episodes) , sex jokes and lots and lots of mentions of drugs and shit it's the 80's baby that stuff just happens.

But seriously. If you're not too good with alien-body horror, I got a just a tiny bit of a wince in the final episode with some of the visuals, so just be on the safer side for yourself with that stuff!

[dateamonster]

ive thought abt it ive meditated on it and i do like x significantly more than i thought i would

my first impressions led me to believe it was going to be an """elevated horror""" take on a bog standard slasher, with the adult film angle mainly being used as a gimmick to shock and tantalize while paying some lip service to the (s)exploitation history of the subgenre. from the trailer alone you could see it was heavily referencing slashers past (mainly texas chainsaw) but it was hard to get a sense of the movies identity outside of that. with how obsessed the genre (and all genres really) currently is with stealing the moves and iconography of more recognizable and nostalgic IPs, paired with the fucking lightning quick release of a prequel, i kinda wrote x off as a sales strategy dressed up like a movie. and idk i still stand by like parts of that. ive heard that pearl is the wildly superior movie (planning to watch that next) so it makes me wonder if x was just like a means to drum up interest in a movie that otherwise wouldnt have been as marketable. if that is at all the case, i have to give it up to the creators because that is such a bold and honestly kind of hilarious strat and funniest of all it seems to have totally worked. this is all still speculation of course.

but x on its own is a pretty strong movie. idk if its an especially good horror movie, but it is a good movie, and i feel like that sorta takes precedent. the characters were all well-defined and interesting. there was a good mix of likable folks that made you want to see them survive and assholes with satisfying deaths- the two prime forms of slasher victim imo. most importantly in my opinion, the story engaged honestly and meaningfully the subjects of sex and sex work. the way the genre typically treats sexuality has historically been... less than progressive, and though its still ultimately a story about sex workers being killed by repressed octogenarians, which is gonna be what it is no matter what, i felt pleasantly surprised by the treatment of the characters and the subject matter.

it doesnt feel like an arbitrary gimmick either. more i think the conflict between the elderly antagonists and their lodgers represents the conflict between the free love and sex positive movements of the 60s and 70s and the rise of christian conservative moralism in response to it, ominously foreshadowing its crest only a few short years after the events of the movie during the hiv/aids crisis.

i interpreted the movies thesis as this idea that hostility towards sexuality particularly between generations stems from this repression and agonized frustration at the loss of sex, beauty, youth. the movie draws all these interesting visual and narrative parallels between the two conflicting parties, particularly between maxine and pearl, which is obviously heightened by the fact that mia goth plays both characters in either movie respectively, which seem to suggest that pearl is a version of maxine who never got to live her superstar dreams, who is deeply burdened by regret and the passage of time and takes it out on those she sees as flaunting their privileges. its a phenomenon we still see in real time today: "why does this sheltered, soft younger generation get to have it so easy, when i had it so hard." clumsy as the execution felt in some places, the core premise is strong.

the places where x doesnt work for me or mostly in its desperation to make moments feel scarier than they are with ominous sound design and erratic editing. it doesnt not work, i guess, but the result feels undeserved. the actual horror part of this horror movie is its weakness. its the first time i can remember where i was engaged up until the middle of the latter half where the killing actually takes off. it just didnt do it for me, and the way the elderly couples bodies and sexuality were exploited to try and provoke horror and disgust felt especially like it was just trying too hard. i cant deny those scenes were uncomfortable, but not for the reasons the filmmakers seemed to think, and never to the point of fear or dread.

my favorite parts of x were the moments that explored the relationships between the young movie makers. i honestly feel like that in and of itself couldve been the whole movie and i wouldve been just as happy. bobby-lynne i think was a delightful, undersold character, with her marilyn monroe looks and quiet, profound emotional intelligence, as well as the unflinching pride in her career of choice. jackson i wish couldve been a focus more, if only because i feel like media is so afraid to talk about male sex workers and especially the way that role intersects with race. the film their making itself is predicated on a really loaded racialized dynamic and i know focusing more on that would probably totally take focus off the main story but its still really interesting and it feels strange just sort of letting that hang in the air.

the subplot regarding rj and lorraine is incredibly interesting and frustrating to me. x just fucking nails it with this one. lorraines sudden desire to join the movie felt a little forced to me but im overlooking that because it gives way to this sharp, incisive character moment, revealing that rj, for all he likes to talk about porn being art, looks down on its participants. his supposed sex positivity only holds out as long as he can retain a clear mental distinction between the good girls (chaste, but not too prudish, of course) and the dirty sluts. its just such a succinct and accurate roast of the divide between person who benefits/profits from sex work vs the actual worker, and how thats informed by sexism, racism, classism. rj and wayne die horribly again challenge <3

anyway thats all i have to say for now i think. there were hits, there were misses, but i do think i absolutely get the hype now, even if i dont necessarily agree with it in absolutely every aspect. mia goth put in an amazing performance, obviously, as did the rest of the cast imho, and im very excited for pearl.

[barbie-pop-feminismus]

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A post shared by Mark Ronson (@iammarkronson)

BARBIE Sounds

Mark Ronson 5. August 2023 on IG: “But it should always be a party…” - Greta Gerwig Andrew and I were SO damn inspired by the emotional draw of this film, its technicolour vibrations and enchanting performances, every note of music we wrote came from a true place of reacting to what we saw and how it made us feel. Sometimes we felt like bopping, other times we got WAY into our feelings. I mean how could anyone not?

The scene with Barbie and Ruth Handler discussing life and humanity and motherhood still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. We spent at least a hundred hours on that scene, writing and rewriting, experimenting with melodies, tempos and orchestration and would have done a hundred more, that’s how much we felt the scene and wanted to do right by it. We pushed ourselves harder than we ever have on every piece of music here. We taught ourselves old gear, new gear. We studied. I had to damn near teach myself orchestration (luckily Andrew’s ahead of me in that department plus we had the amazing orchestrator Matt Dunkley). We had to find the sound of Barbieland. Greta loved the fat warmth yet artificiality of 70’s & 80’s synthesizers but she also craved the elegant romance of the orchestra.

As Barbie (& Ken!) go out on their journey to uncover their true selves, we worked to find the balance of both. We played a lot of the instruments, but had beautiful players like Questlove, Roger Manning, the Menahan Street Band crew, Josh Freese, Wolf Van Halen and more lend their magic touch. And then of course, London & NY’s symphonic finest!

Keeping the link between the score and the amazing soundtrack tunes was very important. Sometimes a piece of score we wrote would evolve into a song, in the case of “Pink”. Or with “I’m Just Ken”, a song we wrote morphed into score and back into song again. And with “Meeting Ruth” – one of my favourite moments, we were inspired to reimagine Billie & Finneas’ gorgeous “What Was I Made For?” as a wistful 1930’s orchestral ballad accompanied by Molly Lewis’ virtuosic whistling. When I think of all the music between the score and the songs, in some ways, Barbie is damn near a musical because Greta’s vision makes you feel like you’re going to burst open or walk on air, like all the greatest musicals do. I can’t believe we got to so deep into our feelings on a film as magical as Barbie. If this music helps you relive the giant pink beating heart of the film just a tiny bit, we’ve done our job. Love Mark"

[yeahiwasintheshit]

Saw that movie, X, that came out earlier this year and it’s clear they’re going for that retro 70s exploitation movie vibe, and if that’s the only thing they wanted to do with this movie, than it worked, I guess. Problem is there wasn’t anything else to any of these characters. It was all very surfacy. Nothing deeper about these characters, but since It was only an exploitation movie, then I guess I shouldnt expect more? idk. Now knowing they are planning a whole expanded universe with this character, maybe they’ll do more with the person(s) who survive in those other movies? i suppose, (trying not to spoil anything) but on its own, I didn’t get much of anything out of this. I wasn’t bored, but I wasn’t too invested in who these people are.

And the main actress Mia goth was fine. I think she did an ok job, a little flat and one-notey, but I feel like they were going for that. I just didn’t really buy this character living in that time. Like the main thing for me is they shaved her eyebrows off, and they have a lot of blue eye shadow on her, and it just makes her look comical or homicidal. And they never mention it. Like I was waiting for them to say something like, “ok honey were about to film your porn scene, it’s time to draw on your eyebrows, it’s such a shame you can’t grow them yourself” but like... it’s just never mentioned. All that’s mentioned about her is that she REALLY wants to be a star. It’s literally the year 1979, and we’re to believe that a person who watches TV and the movies in 1979 is so motivated to being a big star that would they would just walk around with no eyebrows? No big celebrity in 1979 was in movies or TV with no eyebrows, and to think she would think not having eyebrows was ok, didnt feel true for her character, in that time setting. It was just so distracting. It just didnt ring true to any of these characters in this time in history that no one would mention it either. Especially since they are about to film a scene in a porn movie with her. Like she wasnt trying to be famous in like some sort of underground horror movie scene, where maybe you can get away with no eyebrows, she wanted to be a star star, and it just made no sense why she would not draw on eyebrows. I was so distracted by that lol

It was shot well enough, and had some interesting scenes, like there was one over head view of when maxine was in the pond with the alligator, (Chekhov’s alligator? Lol) to me that built some tension, but overall, I felt there were no stakes for these people because right at the beginning, in the first few frames of the movie, we see there was a bloodbath at the farm. We don’t know who or what, but we know most if not all of the people we will meet will die, and for me I don’t really like that kind of framing. It deflates tension almost immediately.

There was also a couple really cheesy kills, like the one in the barn. It was so obvious what was going to happen, it made it uninteresting and a little eye rolling (no pun intended) to watch. Tho there was a cool shot, right before that kill, when the camera pans all the way on the floor and we see what’s right in front of the person and we know what is about to happen next. That was great bit of leading the audience, and built some tension, and when that thing happened I really got the willies. Cause I felt it too lol

Other than a couple scenes that were kinda good, I really didn’t get much out of the movie. I didn’t find any of these people likable or worth rooting for. It’s not that they were bad or evil people, it’s just they were pretty one dimensional characters. And even the villains were kinda dumb. Like there was an interesting scene at the beginning when maxine is in the house and old photos on the wall are shown to her, there was something there. I was intrigued to know more, but they didnt really build on that, and when they kinda reveal the villains motivations theyre really muddled and kinda weak. I felt a few times watching “why?” and there was no really interesting reason.

I also didn’t really like how much the “age” of the older couple was used as a device to elicit horror and grossness from the audience. The makeup on the old people was really pretty good but it was clear it was makeup and it made me wonder why are they putting old age makeup on people instead of just hiring old people (later found out it was the whole prequel/ sequel thing, I guess) But they go out of their way to illustrate that the old people are gross, and they are gross for having sexuality, or having sexual feelings and eventhough they do horrible things because of it, the mere fact of their sexuality was presented as being gross, which again was more of a distraction and kinda off putting.

Idk, I think they wanted this movie to be like really cutting edge and cool, but its kinda vapid and empty. Like the idea of an exploitation movie lends itself to being sort of one dimensional and empty. (pile on the kills and boobs and nothing else than all is good? no) but it just never went beyond that. Maybe they will with the other movies, idk, but im not sure i care enough to find out.

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ��first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[nitewrighter]

Why does Feyd always look gnc af in all the arts? Is he like that in the books?

In the books House Harkonnen is a lot more 'decadent' and 'flamboyant' in general because Frank Herbert's a homophobe and seems to have a serious grudge against bright colors and things being pretty just for the sake of being pretty, but also Feyd's kind of supposed to be a dark reflection of Paul--a pretty boy around age 16 being bounced around by machinations that have been around much, much longer than him. The book emphasizes Feyd being a pretty boy, and Feyd also having a harem--but Feyd himself also plots to kill the Baron to take his seat, but eventually ends up falling begrudgingly within the Baron's control. Feyd's physical appearance in the book is described as "well muscled, with a round sullen face and full lips, and dark hair in close ringlets."

When Jodorowsky was trying to adapt Dune, he had the artist Moebius draw up a bunch of concept art, and they actually wanted to cast Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha. And this was 1975 Mick Jagger so...

This guy...

In this outfit.

Which like... not gonna lie would have blown 70's audience's tiny minds.

But Jodorowsky was too weird and artsy and horny and Dali was there also being weird and artsy and horny and he wanted to light a giraffe on fire and also get a helicopter and the movie didn't get made but anyway watch the Jodorowsky's Dune documentary because it's insane and the efforts to make this movie did end up influencing sci-fi for the next decade and a half.

BUT fast-forward to 1984, David Lynch adapts Dune, and casts Sting as Feyd Rautha.

(Yes I could have used the codpiece picture but this is his actual outfit for most of the film)

In the David Lynch movie they kind of eschew the whole 'Feyd-plots-to-kill-the-baron' subplot and just have Sting!Feyd be all "Neheheheheh Uncle Baron lets me murder stuff >:]"

So like... arguably, a lot of people get counter-culture vibes from Feyd Rautha and that's why they like casting rock stars for him, because rock and roll itself in the 70's and 80's kind of toed this line of both masculinity and flouting gender norms, and the "Rockstar lifestyle" itself was also a combination of "cool" and "decadent" and "Fucked up" which fit for Feyd and the decadence and flamboyance of House Harkonnen.

Which kind of fits with Frank Herbert's values because I'm pretty sure Frank Herbert hated rock and roll, because Iron Maiden literally wrote a song entirely about Dune and they asked him "Can we title our song 'Dune?'" and Frank was like "No I hate your music." So they titled it "To Tame a Land."

But anyway when you take all of those factors into consideration, it's not surprising that a lot of people's interpretations of Feyd Rautha look GNC as fuck.

[thealmightyemprex]

Top 10 Non Disney Family movies pre 1980's

So back in the day,family movies were kind of a rarity.......Unless you were Disney ,Disney DOMINATED this subgenre .But there were a few good family movies not made by the house of mouse

For this list I have a few rules

1.I am cutting it off at 1979,as after that family films became more common

2.No TV movies ,as much as I love 1965's Rodgers and Hammersteins Cinderella and Rankin/Bass's Hobbit ,I am limiting it to theatrical features

3.Obvious one but no Disney

4.I personally didnt include Star Wars or Superman The Movie, cause I wanted to showcase some other movies

Onto the list

10.Treasure Island (!934)

My favorite straight adaptation of Treasure Island,the classic tale of a young boy who finds himself thrust into a great adventure ,with a lovable rogue in the form of Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and fun performances by Lionel Barrymore and Nigel Bruce

9.Charlottes Web (1971)

A personal childhood classic for me ,the story of the friendship between a spider and a pig is heartwarming ,with good voice performances by Debbie Reynolds,Henry Gibson and Paul Lynde.Not higher cause I just havent watched it in a while

8.Scrooge (1970)

A musical retelling of the tale of A Christmas Carol . My personal favorite Christmas Carol and this one has some nice creepy moments and catchy songs

7.Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Basically representative for most of Ray Harryhausens fantasy films.A sense of adventure with cool monsters and set pieces

6.Lassie Come Home (!943)

A story about a dog trying to make her way home ,a very episodic,very chill film with some scenes of peril .The draw of the film for kids would be Lassie herself who is one of the best movie dogs ever

5.Thief of Baghdad (1940)

A fantasy adventure with stunning setpieces like a mechanical person with multiple arms,giant spiders,a bombastic Genie ,a magic carpet,a flying horse , a very intimidating villain to root against and a really cool kid hero who I imagine was awesome to many kids , a young thief who proves himself a true hero,and how anyone can be

4.The Adventures of Robin Hood (!938)

Yeah there is slight political stuff ,but a kid can follow it as the story is simple: The Prince and his crew are bullies,while Robin is fighting for the little guy .Its colorful ,it has exciting action ,there are fun characters like the Friar , the bad guys are hatable and the hero is awesome

3.Muppet Movie (1979)

The cameos will go over the heads of youngsters ,but its a fun musical road trip about puppets trying to go to Hollywood and along the way becoming a family

2.Willy Wonka and the Choclate Factory

Yeah with these top two I am not surprising anyone .It s a wonderful premise about a magical candy factory,with a wondeful performance by Gene Wilder ,memorable songs and a good message I feel

1.Wizard of OZ

....I mean....Do I have to explain.Its gorgeous,lovely characters ,good songs ,its one of the few old movies a lot of people still watch .Its a universal story

What are some of your favorite pre 70's Non Disney family films?

@ariel-seagull-wings @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @filmcityworld1 @amalthea9 @princesssarisa @the-blue-fairie @lord-antihero @marquisedemasque

[hooterhorror]

Hi lovely, could I get a slasher matchup? <3

I’m a 20 year old female, and my pronouns are she/her/they/them. I’m 5’6, decently fit, I have blue eyes, and shoulder length green hair with an undercut (although the color is always changing!) I have a couple tattoos and plan to get more soon. I tend to gravitate toward more 70’s-ish styles, but love to bum it in oversized sweatshirts too.

I’m the definition of crazy cat lady and could talk for hours about my beloved kitties. I also love to talk about ghosts/paranormal stuff and Cryptids (especially Mothman). My hobbies include baking, Irish dance, and drawing.

I’m very shy when I first meet people, but when I grow comfortable with them i can be very loud and a bit weird, but I’m always a loyal friend. My humor is absolutely broken. You could show me a video of a cheeseburger with a bass boosted fart in the background and I would be in tears. I basically have the humor of a 12 year old. I also tend to randomly quote TikToks a lot, like “oh no… our table… it’s broken!”

Although I’m a very fun person and try to be cheerful, I do have a few medical issues that really take a toll on me; such as my psoriasis, tachycardia, anemia, and IBS. I’m cold 24/7 no matter how warm it is and will steal all the blankets. When I’m having really bad flare ups I’m a mess and can’t get out of bed by myself due to the pain and discomfort. I try not to let it get the best of me but, when flare ups happen the best way to make myself feel better is to curl up under the blankets and watch movies all day with my cats.

hi there! ty for sending this in :33 I have POTS myself so I understand the struggle with a shitty heart :") chronically ill gang ✊

Billy Loomis.

In a way, your bad humor reminds him of Stu and at first he's rolling his eyes as the two of you laugh your asses off... so annoying.

but oh how you grow on him.

he loves your hair, first of all. He's always doing a double take at the new colours and furrowing his brows like: "didn't you just change it?? why's it green now??" but he's always supportive and insists any colour looks good on you!

if you go bright red he's gonna lose his MIND. it's his favorite era for your hair xp

and he'll help you reshave the underside for you, especially when it's growing out but you're in pain for whatever reason or just unable to do it yourself. Billy is very understanding of your conditions and probably researches on his own time so you don't have to tell him everything- he figures that's annoying.

He'll be grinning ear to ear at the sight of your tats if he ever gets a good view of them. He'll probably take a stroll through Pinterest looking at some he thinks would look good on you

"Billy, I'm not looking to get another tattoo right now."

"I know but look at this one- it references an old horror film-"

he'd say he'd never get one himself but you catch him downloading some pictures of sleeves he thinks are hella badass. pls push him to get at least one, he'll listen to you and LOVE IT

he might be squeezing your hand real tight through it though. like he's been stabbed but he didn't really have to sit still and get stabbed over and over though....

he sends you funny tiktoks now. I said it. he gets the same shitty humor as you but hides it real well.

if you reference one you both crack up over around anyone else like "Oh no... our table! it's broken!" he'll glare at you so hard

are you trying to ruin his bad boy cover???

no need to steal any blankets, as soon as you mention that yours having some kind of flareup Billy is pulling out as many as he can find and blasting the room heater so you don't freeze. he worries about you a lot, though silently.

"you feeling alright today, babe? yesterday was pretty bad for you."

he doesn't mind helping you, but he also doesn't want you to feel babied. he'll help when you need him too and ask if you're clearly suffering but not asking for his assistance. just to be sure.

need a certain kind of pain killer while he's out shopping? he's searching high and low for you, pumpkin.

he'll watch movies with you, specifically putting on spooky but funny ones for you both.

he loves horror but rolls his eyes at common ghost stories

I fully believe he's scared shitless of any paranormal happenings, even if it ends up just being Stu pulling some kinda prank.

you swear the last time that happened Stu almost lost his head

but also Billy screamed like a tiny child and held onto you so tightly when the lights went out after they flickered.

Stu and you thought it was hilarious though

Stu proposes the idea that you all go cryptid hunting

sometimes you wonder if you're dating both Stu and Billy

[mrs-harkness]

Ocean Eyes (Part 1)

Pairing: Tammy x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.6K

Taglist: @peggycarter-steverogers @imgayandmymomdoesntknow 

A/n: Hey guys. Sorry for the wait. Life has been so busy as I just became a certified therapist and just life stuff in general. This is just going to be a mini fic for fun while I work on writing my next big one- which will be for Cordelia! Literally nothing like Run to Me, so I hope you don’t find it disappointing. Just a little filler while I work out the plot for my next story!

You pulled out your phone, checking the time. 1:53 PM. Your interview was at 2 o'clock and if you didn't figure out where you were quickly, you were going to be late. You walked faster, panic dialing your best friend who had gotten you the interview.

"Hello?" the sweet voice chimed on the other end.

"Sarah! Help! I'm lost," you pleaded, looking at the address on the piece of paper in your hand and trying to match it to the towering houses around you.

"How did you get lost? I gave you the exact address. Did the driver put it in wrong?"

"No. I made the Uber drop me off at the entrance to the neighborhood because his car looked super sketch and I didn't want the mom to see me step out of a car that looks like it was used in a 70's porn film. I started walking and I got lost."

You heard Sarah shuffling around in the background, and what sounded like the tapping of keys.

"Okay, give me the address for the closest house," she said. Your best friend was a life saver.

"Uhhh... 768 Elm Street," you told her, trying not to look suspicious in this wealthy neighborhood.

"Hmmm. Okay you're literally two streets over. If you go to the end of this street, take a right and walk less than two blocks. You'll make it to maple from there. You somehow managed to be right behind her house. It will take you about ten minutes."

Shit.

"No! There has got to be a quicker way! I am going to be late!" You whined, stomping your feet on the sidewalk in frustration.

"Yeah, Tammy is not going to like that. She is very patient but she's got three kids so she really only has enough patience for them. Well wait, hang on a second."

"What? Did you find a quicker route?"

"Sorta. You should have just stayed in the Uber."

"Sarah I did not want to pull up like Will Smith from the Fresh Prince of Belaire, now spit it out already!"

"Well that house you are standing in front of? Technically if you could find a way into their backyard and through the trees... you could get to Tammy's house in half the time."

You looked at the house in front of you. It looked more like a post office than a home. Large marble columns, real gas lamps framing a shiny oak door, and a second floor balcony that seemed larger than Sarah's whole apartment. This is not the type of property you just meandered around on, but this job was also not the type of opportunity you just let slip away by being two minutes late.

You walked a little to the side of the house, and there you found your favorite thing of the whole house: A gate to the backyard.

"I'm gonna do it," you say to Sarah, who had been quiet this entire time.

There was more silence, before you heard your best friend draw in a breath.

"Don't get arrested please. Call me when you're done, or in lock up. Either way, be safe."

Sarah had always been someone who just supported and loved you no matter what. Whether it was moving on a whim to another city and crashing on her couch indefinitely or trespassing through a rich family's yard to get the job that would help you get started on your dreams. She was that type of friend and you loved her for it.

You didn't even say goodbye as you hung up and checked the time again. 1:55 PM mocked you on the screen. You shoved the phone in your pocket before quickly looking around. No one was out and about thankfully probably due to the heat picking up, so you walked briskly over to the gate.

You said a prayer and begged the universe to be kind to you under your breath as you forced yourself to find the courage and flung open the lock to the gate, letting it swing open. You looked around the yard really quickly to find it empty as well. Maybe this wouldn't be hard at all.

You closed the gate behind you and you quickly jogged into the yard. There was a picnic table close to the other side of the fence and you would be able to hop right over! You breathed a sigh of relief because everything was going to plan, until the dog.

A ear piecing yap began sounding through the yard like an obnoxious security alarm. You turned and saw that the back of the home was basically one big window and there inside was the ugliest looking purse dog you had ever seen, notifying every living creature with working ears within a mile of your presence.

You watched horrified as the owner of said ugly dog appeared in the view of the window like some horror movie on a tv screen. An older woman, dressed as if she had been in the middle of a workout, was also now yapping at you angrily and  making her way to her giant window wall.

Your feet started moving before you realized what was happening and you bolted to the back of the yard and onto the picnic table, jumping and throwing one of your legs over the fence. The little old woman made it to a sliding glass door, releasing her dog and profanities towards you.

The dog tore across the lawn, but thankfully was no actual threat. You looked at the woman as you threw your other leg over the fence.

"I'm not a criminal! I'm sorry! I just got lost on the way to a job interview. You have a nice home!" you yelled, trying to prove to this stranger you were not bad, just had poor execution of your ideas. You dropped over the other side of the fence and into the wooded area behind the home, running as fast as your feet could carry you from the angry woman and her angrier dog.

It only took you about a minute of running full force to make it to another fence, a fence you were praying was Tammy's. You ran around the length of it, following it to the front of the house. You shakily pulled out the paper from your pocket and checked the address. You had made it. This was the house. You laughed, more relieved than anything, and jogged to the front door.

You knocked and weren't even able to take a full breath before the door opened.

There before you stood the most beautiful woman you had ever laid your eyes on. Her hair was the color of sand on the beaches of heaven its self and her eyes looked like brownies fresh from the over, and you had the strange thought of wanting to burn your mouth on them.

Y/n, that's weird. Stop it.

You stared at her, trying not to look to heavily at her gorgeous smile at the fear she may think you were looking at her lips. Even though you kind of were. You forced yourself to smile back.

"You must be Y/n," she said, looking at her watch, "and you are right on time. Let it be known I find that super attractive."

You chuckle nervously, unable to process a coherent thought. You really just hoped she couldn't tell you had just ran through the woods to stand stupid on her doorstep. Thankfully it didn't seem like she did and stepped aside, letting you in.

The home was gorgeous and lavish, but also homey and seemed lived in. You could hear the distant laughter of children somewhere in the house and portraits of what you could only assume were those children hung on the walls. You did notice though that there was a lack of family portraits probably due to the husband no longer being in the picture.

Sarah had filled you in a little bit about the family situation. She had worked with them over the summer and was working for them when they filed for divorce. Supposedly neither of them seemed upset by it, but he had still decided to move into another town. Tammy supposedly worked a very busy job and with three rambunctious kids, help was needed. Sarah had helped them occasionally, but Tammy needed something more permanent and hopefully that's where you would come in.

You followed Tammy into a big open kitchen and sat down with her at the kitchen table.

"Can I offer you some tea or water?" she said sweetly.

Even though you were parched from the mini marathon you had just ran, you politely declined. You pulled your resume out of your bag and put it on the table. Tammy reached over and took it, looking at it before smiling back up at you.

"I know Sarah said you had just moved here, so what brought you to town?" Tammy asked.

You hoped the look of confusion was not obvious on your face because you were expecting only questions about the job. You were unsure how useful you would be talking about yourself right now.

"Uh, well I came to town for a fresh start, and with Sarah here, it just seemed like the best place to restart."

"Running from something?" Tammy asked, putting down the resume and taking a sip of something in a mug that had been sitting on the table.

"N-no ma'am. Nothing illegal. I am not a criminal. I told the old lady the same thing," you stuttered.

Tammy raised her eyebrow at the last part, but you kept going to breeze over it hopefully.

"I just- I got my heartbroken and got kicked out of the apartment we shared. I didn't feel like I was making anything of my life where I was and I have such big dreams, but all I found there was pain and complacency, so I came here in hope to change that."

You voice sounded small and you ringed your hands in your lap, nervous that you may have said too much. Tammy's face softened even more somehow though and she smiled at you over the edge of her mug. She stared at you for a moment, her eyes seeming to sparkle. She nodded and looked down at your resume again.

"Well, you certainly have quite an impressive track record here. You seem like a kid expert. And because I already did a background check on you, I feel comfortable saying, if you would like the job its yours."

You sat there at the table, now not trying to hide the stunned look on your face. You had a harder time getting over the fence than getting employed by this woman.

"That's it? You don't need to ask me anything else? You're giving me the job?" you ask, stumbling over your words.

Tammy laughs and it feels like butterflies flutter in your belly. You like to make her laugh, but you aren't sure if she think's you're funny or stupid.

"With my life and my job, Y/n, the thing that is most important to me is being able to trust you. With my kids, my day to day life, and if I need your help with something. Trust and honesty go a long way with me, and you proved that with one question," she said, coming over to you with a glass of water.

You took it with a smile, forcing yourself to take a slow slip.

"Well, you can definitely trust me. And I'd be honored to by your nanny," you say, excitement and nervousness flowering inside your chest.

Tammy smiles sweetly at you.

"Consider yourself part of the family Y/n. Now you do know this is a live in position right? Sarah told you that?"

You nodded, that having been one of the main reasons you wanted the job. As much as you loved Sarah, you did not love sleeping on her couch. Being a live in nanny presented its own set of challenges, but it wouldn't be forever.

"Good. Can you move in today?"

You choked on your water, coughing and spitting it all over your shirt. Tammy laughed at you, and your cheeks burned red. Now you were embarrassed and Tammy sensed that.

"I'm sorry Y/n, I didn't mean to shock you. I just really need your help around here as soon as possible. And it would be better if you just came on in and got to know me and the kids since you're going to be a big part of our lives."

She handed you a paper towel, looking down at you with a comforting expression. Your cheeks burned red again, but not from embarrassment. You looked away and cleared your throat, unsure why you were so flustered.

"Sure. Yeah, no problem. I just need to run home and grab my clothes and things, but I don't have any furniture so-"

"Oh don't worry. You'll have the whole attic. Its renovated and fully furnished and you'll have your own bathroom. You don't need to worry about buying anything."

That was a relief. It would have taken you a while to afford those things.

You got up and walked with Tammy to the front door, her opening it for you.

"Thank you Ms. Tammy for hiring me, you will not regret it. I will take good care of your kids and make your life as easy as I possibly can," you say, brushing a piece of hair behind your ear, attempting to look confident and wanting to ensure Tammy she had made the right choice.

She chuckled again, putting a little hole in that confidence, but it was quickly repaired when she wrapped her arms around you. It shocked you and you stood there, frozen for a second before hugging her back.

"I know you will. You're going to be a wonderful addition to our lives, all of our lives," she said. Her voice had a hint of something in it, making it seem like silk, but then you felt her pulling on your hair a bit and you felt like your legs may fall out from under you. Who was this woman?

Before you could assume anything further though, she pulled back and revealed she had taken a small branch with green leaves from your hair. You laughed nervously. Tammy cocked an eyebrow at you and smiled cheekily, holding it up.

"That is a funny story... I can explain that. I promise I bathe."

It was Tammy who laughed this time thankfully. She nodded and played with the branch in between her long, manicured fingers.

"That's alright. You can tell me about it tonight over drinks once you are home. I'd like to get to know you better while we get you settled."

Something about the way she said it made your breath catch in your throat. She smiled at you and you two said your goodbyes. You would text her when you were on the way back home. How strange that felt.

You sat in a much cleaner Uber on the way back to Sarah's, your head pressed against the glass. You couldn't stop thinking about Tammy and it seemed like you also couldn't wipe the smile from your face either. It seemed almost like a dream.

Just then, your phone buzzed and you were pulled from the thoughts of the woman to see that her name was on your screen. You quickly held the phone up to unlock it, suddenly overcome with the need of answering her at a moments notice. Thankfully it was not a message of her changing her mind.

Btw, just call me Tammy. Ms. Tammy is a little formal ;)

You smiled and bit your lip, quickly responding.

Okay, Tammy :)

[sichengtual]

how sweet it is (to be loved by you)

— summary: some loves are meant to run too deep, some loves are meant to stand the test. luckily, for you and cheol, nothing has ever posed a threat.

— pairing: choi seungcheol x reader.

— genre: fluff ; established relationship ; 70's au, part of the tiny dancer universe.

— word count: 2665

— warnings: mentions of smoking.

happy birthday to the love of my life @svtxsoju! i love you so so so much 💞

Seungcheol had never been hard to read.

From the very first moment you’d met, you’d seen he always wore his heart on his sleeve. You liked that about him; the way you could tell how he was feeling by paying attention to the size of his smile and the gleam in his eyes. For a while, you wondered if he was like that when only you were there to see. A sort of prize won after confidence, the kind that came with a great deal of trust. Your heart always leapt at the thought; of Seungcheol trusting you enough to let his walls down, of letting you in with such ease you’d wonder if he just wasn’t afraid of ever getting hurt… not by you, but by the world.

After a while, you finally came to see it wasn’t quite like that. Seungcheol just trusted people. Not only his friends (which you were at the time) or the people closest to him, but the strangers he passed by on the street. The people he ran into at the store. The men he made business with, the bands he came to meet, the fans he saw from afar. It was a beautiful thought, Seungcheol having a heart so big there was no sort of mistrust in it; but it was also a scary one, because you knew the world to be cruel. You knew the world to be undeserving of him.

“He’s gonna fall down on his ass,” Mingyu speaks next to you, a hand in the pocket of his torn up leather jacket and the other holding a cigarette. “Part of me wants you to tell him to come down but the other part wants revenge from him waking me up at 5 today.”

“You guys had a gig,” you laugh, taking a sip from your cup. It’s run cold, but the beverage leaves a sweet aftertaste on the back of your tongue, so you keep drinking. Summer is just around the corner anyways. “Not to defend him, but, you know.”

“Oh no, not you too,” Mingyu whines, throwing his head back as he speaks. He’s always reminded you of Seungcheol, and you wonder if that’s why the two seem to clash together so much. “The gig was at noon, no need to see the rise of dawn and scare my sleep away with Chan’s sleeping mask.”

“Oh, fuck you!” You hear from the back of the yard, Chan’s voice somehow louder than the playing vinyl.

His laughter, followed by Mingyu’s quiet giggle and the careless strum of a guitar, brings a smile on your lips.

Night has barely begun to fall down. The sky is tinged bubblegum pink and the clouds have started to change color, adorning the afternoon sky in an array of orange shades. It’s the moment before it starts turning down, but even when the light threatens to decrease, temperature only but rises. It’s a warm summer afternoon, with friends laughing at the top of their longs and music playing as soft background music, setting the scene even when the melody runs ignored.

It had been a while since you last had spent time with the band. They had just gone on their first big world tour and were just getting welcomed back home, and you can swear there’s something about finally knowing the world that allows their smiles to grow a little bit wider. It’s as if they’ve collected happiness at every spot, experiences turned into emotion as they let themselves completely feel every single moment. It’s as if they let their hearts be free once they’ve known how it is to let their bodies do the same.

“Why did he even get up there, anyways?” You ask, taking a sip from your punch glass. It’s sweet and cool against the growing heat.

“Seungkwan and Hoshi dared him,” Mingyu answers, smiling when Soonyoung tries to excuse his actions, yelling about some book incident involving Cheol and Jun. “Can’t believe he’s about to fall on his face in front of you for a slice of cheese pizza, though.”

“It’s a matter of honor!” Seungcheol exclaims between jolts of laughter, fingers forming a peace sign as Joshua pulls his portable camera out of his bag and points it at him. “Wait, what is this for?”

He tries to pose as he stands over a wobbly table, one of his hands holding a glass of pink colored punch and the other pointing to the camera while he tries to keep still for however long it takes Joshua to focus the lens. The guitarist isn’t the best at photographs, but his enthusiasm makes up for the lack of skill.

“Ivy and Jun are doing some groovy memory thing,” he explains, breaking into a laugh, shrugging in the direction of the couple. “Don’t worry, I’ll document every step of the process.”

Your boyfriend’s mouth opens wide at Joshua’s words, the peace sign in his hand quickly becoming a single pointed finger, eyes blazing as he moves his hand in the air.

“As soon as these fifteen minutes are up I’m getting down from here,” Seungcheol says, each word enunciated in the form of a loud whine, a pout forming on his lips as he berates his friend. “Be sure to document the slice of pizza in my mouth, Bob Dylan!”

“That would be so fucking gross,” Minghao comments from the hammock, a pair of pastel yellow sunglasses resting on the tip of his nose. “Trust me, no one would ever want to see that.”

“And Josh wishes he was Bob Dylan!” Mingyu laughs.

“I bet you wish you got the riff today right, tho,” Chan teases, another fit of laughter ensuing. Mingyu responds, and Minghao giggles.

Seungcheol turns to see his friends from where he’s standing, chest growing tight at the sight. It’s his family, after all, reunited and relaxed after what was, probably, the start to a lifelong adventure. You meet him halfway, smiling as you point the glass of punch in his direction in a silent cheer. It’s your family as much as it’s his, and there’s a sense of pride growing in the center of your stomach as you realize what an honor it is to be a part of it.

He smiles, and it doesn’t really seem like he’s all the way across the yard on top of a table that threatens to break down, because he’s truly never felt closer to you.

…

Hours later, the pizza discussion has quieted and night has finally fallen down.

Seungcheol ended up not falling, breaking literally everyone but Ivy, Jun, and your expectations, but earning Joshua quite a groovy photo (he had almost fallen down, after all). The beginning of the entire thing is still a bit of a mystery to you, but with the information you’ve been given, you’re not completely sure you’d actually want to know. After all, the entire fifteen minutes had given you a good laugh and a lifetime of worries, all at the same time.

“Here,” Seungcheol’s voice breaks you apart from your thoughts. He’s holding a yellow ceramic cup full of steaming tea, arm stretched in your direction. “Can you believe Seungkwan was trying to hide his Earl Gray from me?”

“Actually, yeah, I can,” you answer as you laugh, taking the cup from Seungcheol’s hands while he sits on the grass next to you. “You don’t even drink tea.”

“No, but he knows you do,” he says. He speaks as if he’s telling you a secret, words low, soft against the wind, entering your ears like honey as your lips curl up into a smile.

Seungcheol’s gentleness is present in every thought, in every gesture. It’s in the thinking of you to ensure your comfort, the going out of his way to make you happy, that lets you know he treats your happiness like he’s guarding a flower that’s just about to bloom. He touches it with the tips of his fingers, caring for it and nurturing it, helping your smile grow by the day. A smile directed at him.

“And yet he guards it from the both of us,” you say, raising the cup to your lips and taking a small sip. It’s sweet, a bit too sweet, perhaps, but the saccharine taste feels like velvet against your tongue, so you continue drinking. You’ve always liked sweet things, and Seungcheol has always known. “Are you not gonna have anything?”

“Seungkwan’s coffee brew and my stomach aren’t really the best of friends,” he jokes, eyes fixed on the midnight sky. “Not after last time, at least. The good thing about the tour was that all the coffee we got was made by other people.”

“Hey, he takes a lot of pride in his coffee brew!”

“That doesn’t make it any lighter!”

He doesn’t quite remember just how long it’s been since he’s taken a second to stop and breathe in like he’s doing now, the feeling of laying down without a worry having been completely alienated. It’s like he’s always on track; always moving here or there, physically or in thought, and stopping finally means letting his thoughts lay down too. He lets himself feel every inch of the warm breeze hitting his skin and rustling his hair, enjoying every second of finally watching the stars shine bright above his head.

Seungcheol is always hearing Jun talk about just how much he likes looking at the stars, and now he finally understands.

“Hey, look up there,” Seungcheol whispers, nudging your shoulder with his and pointing to the sky with his finger. You’re not sure he’s drawing your attention to any spot in particular, and, to be honest, neither is he. “It reminds me of you.”

“What exactly are you looking at?” You ask, and it’s somewhere between a laugh and a question, but he doesn’t comment on it. He’s always loved the way you talk, because, even if for a second, he feels like happiness drips from every pore. “You’re pointing at like, at least five different stars right now.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. You’re each and every single one of them. You’re there with me, lightning my path with every step I take.”

You’re not sure, but you’d think that’s the moment the world stops spinning, because it’s just the two of you; it’s just you and Seungcheol, and your warm cup of tea, and the crazed laughter of your friends flows through the air like the background scene of a film you’ll watch over, and over, and over again. It’s like the moment and his words become etched so deep inside your heart they become a part of who you are, and of who you will always be, because there’s nothing that encompasses happiness better than the love you and Seungcheol hold for each other.

“Are you coming for Jun’s job now?” You ask, voice breaking as tears begin to prickle your eyes.

“Should we switch places?” Seungcheol follows, letting himself fall completely on his back, feeling the grass grazing against the soft linen of his purple button-up. His tone is light, relaxed. Gentle. “I’m pretty sure Jun could make for a convincing business man.”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure he would. He’s different now, isn’t he? He feels a bit more confident. A bit more secure.”

“Love does that to you, I guess. It makes you believe in yourself, because you know someone else does it too.”

And it’s just so much of a feeling growing inside your chest that you’re sure this is exactly where you’re meant to be, and Seungcheol is exactly who you’re meant to be with. You look at your surroundings, and he’s nestled so deep within your soul it’s almost like he’s everywhere. Every single place, every single sound, every single scent; he's everything.

“Can I have this dance?”

He moves, rustling in place as he extends his hand over to you.

“You can have all of them.”

It’s almost like it’s your thoughts speaking, voices intertwining, souls coming together. He takes your hand in his and you follow his lead as he stands up, pulling you to his chest with such gentleness in his touch it feels like you’re made of glass. He doesn’t move for a few seconds, but you don’t really think he needs to, because as soon as his fingers tangle with yours, it’s almost like you’re flying.

Somewhere in the garden, sitting around a campfire, Joshua and Mingyu’s guitars begin playing a song you both know, and you barely notice the moment your feet start moving. They dance on their own accord, gliding over the grass in a pace that doesn’t quite match the one set by the instruments, but neither of you fight it. He tightens the grip on your fingers and sets them over his chest, moving in closer to your frame.

You can feel him in what’s almost a hug by how close you’re standing, and it’s only when Joshua and Mingyu begin singing that you move your head up to take a look at him. The melody is sweet, raising into the sky over the crackling of a roaring fire. Dark, thick wisps of hair fall against his forehead and over the golden frame of his glasses, completely rustled by the summer breeze. You know it’s only a matter of time before he’ll try to tussle it back against his head, no doubt counterproductive, further messing up his (once) carefully gelled hairstyle.

He looks just the way he did when you last saw him before the tour, and, in a way, he looks a completely different person. There’s a sense of growth, of experience, of adventure nestling in his smile and yet, the look in his eyes expresses just as much love for you as it’s always done.

“I missed you,” he says, words soft against your skin.

He pulls you in even closer, lips coming into contact with your forehead. He presses a kiss; light, soft, gentle. And yet loving, lingering. It’s an expression of a love that doesn’t quite pressure to grow, that doesn’t quite define itself by the closeness in touch or time. It’s born on the surface, but it travels down so deep it lays untouched by whatever might pose a threat. It blooms, so wildly and fierce, and so close to your own souls it’s shaped them into what they are. It’s what you are, and you can feel it dripping down your very self whenever you’re close. It’s where you’ve found a sense of home.

“I missed you too.”

You smile, letting your forehead rest against his lips. He takes in a breath, closing his eyes. The cup of tea sits long forgotten over the grass, but steam still rises from the top. The liquid lays untouched, unmoving; but still warm.

…

The morning rises, and you’re there to see.

Seungcheol is asleep in the guest room of Seungkwan’s field house, resting calmly beneath the thick duvet you had shared the night before. His arm is still splayed over the space you once occupied, and there’s a smile resting on his lips. His hand is balled into a fist, clutching the soft, velvet sheets. Light begins to seep through the window, filtering through the curtains. A soft ray falls over his face.

In the backyard, you look up at the sky. Once dark, it’s now the most beautiful shade of gold you’ve ever seen. Air runs between the trees, and you can feel it move against your skin. The world starts waking up as you smile, and you can feel every second of it. Joshua and Mingyu sleep calmly on the couch, and Minghao brews his coffee in silence. Ivy reads a book while caressing Jun’s hair, his head resting on their lap. Seungkwan, Soonyoung, Chan and Vernon busy themselves with breakfast, the faint scent of burning toast reaching your nose.

Your family is there with you, and you feel love all around.

[canmom]

would love your thoughts on the animated video for Levitating by Dua Lipa that just dropped

Ooh, @mogsk told me about this but I never got around to watching it, appreciate the reminder. Here's the video if anyone's curious:

So the immediate impression I get is that they have the late 70s-early 90s anime look absolutely dead on, down to all kinds of little details like subtleties of head shape, film scratches, the low drawing count, light bleed on the photography, variable chromatic aberration the colour palettes straight out of Sailor Moon... looking into it, that turns to be exactly the project of NOSTALOOK, who describe themselves as a "70’s-90’s style nostalgic looking animation art project". I can't say whether that's one person or several (although the credits for this video cite a few other Japanese animators); in any case, they have evidently made a study of that period of anime as only a devotee can.

(They're not the only person I can think of who's deliberately cultivating an 80s anime look... nsfw artist/animator bluethebone does something pretty similar.)

In theory there's no reason why we can't make 80s-looking anime today, after all pixels are just numbers and if we can encode 80s anime to video then we should be able to create that effect, but a lot of attempts tend to miss the mark. (Look at the number of music videos that try to riff on Akira crossed with the received idea of '80s imagery'...) There's lots of reasons for this difficulty...

For one example, modern anime pipelines essentially draw the lines as indexed pixel art (at the douga stage, equivalent to 'cleanup' in a traditional western pipeline) then digitally anti-alias them after colouring. This tends to give a distinctive, very even look, especially when studios work in 720p as is common in TV anime which adds a slight blurriness. By contrast, old school anime tends to have slightly more textured lines that subtly reflect the way they were inked. (This is a generalisation; there are digital shows that deliberately use more textured lines, recent examples including Ufotable's Demon Slayer and the last couple arcs of Bleach. But this is another look again.)

Another technique you never see anymore is backlight animation. This was accomplished by having an opaque cel with a hole through which light can shine - you see it all over 70s and 80s OVAs, and films like Akira. In theory you could accomplish a similar effect with a shader, at least reasonably close if not every subtlety - but for whatever reason, this is not a digital effect people go out of their way to create. I guess because it'd clearly be a nostalgia gesture there are now a lot of other options if you want to digitally process an animation frame.

Returning to Nostalook, although I think pursuing nostalgia is not really my aim when it comes to art, I respect the effort to understand the aesthetic elements of past works and decide how to repurpose them. And that era of anime is obviously one I'm pretty fond of! (> implying there's an era of anime i dislike, i acknowledge, weebishly)

Anyway, as for this specific video... beyond the overall aesthetic, I admit the editing didn't grab me that much, but I guess the aesthetic is basically the entire statement here! I would be interested to know a little more about the musical context for someone more familiar with her work.