#May try redrawing it later but I just wanted to share this anyway because I like Anna Gram but sadly don’t draw her much

[comical-icicle]

I finally got around to coloring this.

[mayordea]

huzzah! 2023 art review!

it’s almost the end of the year, wowzers! i always do one of these art review thingies since i always like looking back at the art ive made :> last year i posted the review on my other account and left it at there, but this year i want to actually review each month and notable pieces i made… just for fun!

this post is very much just for me lol, but i hope someone out there enjoys it. month-by-month review + previous year in reviews will be under the cut! 🩷

(also, shoutout to tumblr for going rouge and posting this way way earlier than i had scheduled 😍 luckily tumblr post editor is weirdly based and kept all my embedded links when i pasted it from the old one? hell yeah)

Jan: started off the year with a painting of my beloved ocs after ending last year with one! (and i will be talking about my older year in reviews, rest assured). this was my obligatory cute shared scarf art, and i wanted to try attempting to render something more involved like two characters and draping cloth. i don't think the result was too shabby, though this was before i discovered my favorite rendering brush for procreate, so in hindsight, it looks kinda flat and boring now. where's all the crunch? ah but anyway, starting a whole year with your art in a mid place compared to what you made later on is par for the course.

Feb: probably the month where i had the least art to put here, i remember scraping a little to find one. this was a chrobin piece i made in my sketchbook! nothing too noteworthy... i think i tried doing a slightly different approach to coloring with markers (applying the color before the lineart) and incorporating paint, but i remember this one giving me trouble. first of all, the size i drew this in was really small (it was in a small sketchbook and i decided to mask the margins with comparatively wide masking tape), and second of all the paper was absolutely NOT built for gouache, so it ended up a kind of wrinkly and muddy mess. i mean i'm still not the best with gouache now but still, not my best.

March: a redraw of a robin piece i made back when i was still on amino. i probably won't share the old versions because they're crap, so just trust me on the redraw part. anyway, the last iteration of the concept was in 2019 i think? and while i was proud of it for a while, its luster finally faded and i decided to try doing it again in procreate. this was when i discovered my love for the soft chalk brush in the jingsketch basics brush pack. for a while i've been using the hard render brush in that pack to render, but this one's texture and chalkiness totally changed the game. i was in love!! also tried to be a little more crazy and vibrant with how i applied the base colors, using saturated colors across the board. this process didn't consistently stick, but i think it yielded some neat results here. another hit from this month was my piece of grandmaster robin, since i'm really proud of the detail here!.

Apr: guys, april was MY MONTH! i remember making so much art in just a few weeks, something just clicked in my brain i guess. i chose my drawings of hagane rin and len since this was when i truly began to get comfy in my lineart era (after the grandmaster drawing). this month was full of detailed line drawings at that, but this one was what made me both enjoy the process a lot and do more of it. hell yeah. other hits: vocaloids at mcdonald's (i drew a background omg!!!), alice in ny fanart (just the euphoria of finally nailing a composition for this piece after struggling with it in november was great), and the end-world normopathy fanart (it's a line drawing, and a traditional one at that. i was happy with incorporating gold accents into my typically monochromatic style when it comes to my line-focused drawings as well as getting tamari's mechanical details nailed).

May: hell yeah. evil power couple time. this one was another line-art heavy one since i thought it fit the vibe. the softer colors in the background i feel like could have been executed a little better, but i do like how this came out, especially the armor (good god fe armor is a pain to render, but i think i've gotten better at it this year! middle school me would be so jealous). not much else to say here. Other hit this month would be my alice of human sacrifice fanart, another line-heavy traditional drawing. i think it turned out nice, especially for a crammed composition lol.

Jun: another end-world normopathy-centered fanart. i mentioned it in my og post but i was trying out a slightly different painting style where i did a black-and-white base first and then added colors as an overlay (also in the initial upload of the post i was so fucking meek about posting fanart of mariyam's alternate design teased at the end of the mv?? 😭 sorry about that, i've edited it out but it's still in early reblogs. kind of cringe on my part). i didn't end up committing to this consistently cuz the beginning process was kind of tedious (plus i'm too inept to pay close attention to values anyway), but laying down all the colors after the long rendering process was rewarding! it's a nice alternative with i get bored with my other method to yield basically the same-looking result lol. this month featured some more pieces that tried using this process, like the one with my oc alice, lucina and dark pit hanging out, and f!robin's resplendent design from feh.

Jul: ah yes my typical flavor of "improvised oc art that i invent new symbolism for on the fly that i apply meaning to after i'm finished". kinda just wanted to paint something again because i've been doing a lot of line drawings lately and to go back to my old painting process again. honestly, i mainly picked this one because i wanted more oc art and non-lineart drawings to be in this chart lol. art i made this month that i'm real proud of is this family pic of some young cryptonloids (i really like how the colors came out on this one!) and my birthday drawing for miku's sweet 16, which was originally completed this month. i opted out of considering it for my july art to avoid confusion. also also, this very whack pathological facade fanart (plus some doodles i didn't post) opened my eyes to the beautiful world of NOISE and HALFTONES and just slapping crazy textures onto my art like nobody's business. hell yeah.

Aug: ok this one is kind of another piece i picked to represent this month that isn't quite my favorite but i chose anyway for the sake of variety (in this case, i wanted more traditional pieces and non-vocaloid stuff). for once, i used my bigger sketchbook to make a big n detailed piece for my boy's new brave alt in feh (that game has zero significance to me outside of cool alt costumes for my faves). my actual fave from this month was young miku/meiko/kaito chillin in their house; i'm real proud of the background and lighting! but i still like this robin too ofc, big fan of how the colors came out ;3

Sep: another traditional drawing! felt compelled to draw kandy again, specifically her evil miitopia great sage incarnation :> this one was pretty standard in terms of process, and not much was really done to experiment. just wanted to draw something cool of my girl for my sketchbook. other fave from this month is this sketchy miku i did, i like how loose it came out and how the colors pop.

Oct: pretty palutena!~ i think i went into this trying to do something a little different with my painting process (i think it was to try incorporating more colors in the shading like the blue in the dress or more saturated colors near the focal point, but i can't remember LOL) or try rendering a more detailed character w/ a background (even if the background was pretty vague). i like this one! especially the color cohesion, it's pretty swag imo. other faves from this month was fanart i made for the song "orbit" since i also like how the color cohesion came out for this one, and the maid dress/crossover drawing i made for cringetober. no other words needed to explain why.

Nov: another digital painting! it's yet another ghost song, this time "uncanny". i really loved the aesthetic of this song, especially its bold colors and simplistic shapes, so i wanted to try capturing it in my style. i really love how the colors turned out on this, though i've yet to truly recreate what i like about this particular painting again? regardless, it's one of my faves, deserving of one of my favorite ghost songs. few other highlights from this month would be my obligatory purple robin drawing for the month, my sketchbook drawing of my luka design, and my fanart of utsu-p's song "ga". i like how i was able to do a couple of my different "styles"/processes this month rather than just sticking to just one. they all have their own feel to them that i like to play around with depending on the idea.

Dec: and finally, we're at the end. like july, we have another heavily improvised oc drawing with symbolism i came up with on the spot. that's just how i do things. anyway, this turned out really good in my opinion! i tried to stick to a color palette i saved in procreate a long time ago, and damn is it a fine palette. it helped me get a little loose with the colors and solely focus on creating a strong composition with colors and contrast rather than get hung up on sticking to typical color palettes. i also really like how i did the background by essentially using the liquify tool to swish all the colors around and then polished it a little on top. made for a really cool effect. other notable work would be the companion piece i made with my other oc that had a similar style since i liked the process of this one. there will probably be more as of when i'm drafting this (at the beginning of december) but i just wanna be finished w this post already bro

all around, very satisfied with this year. there was kind of a lot of song fanarts (something that i am somewhat guilty about because it feels like i'm unoriginal or something, but i swear it's cuz i'm really passionate about vocaloid music and need to act on what my braincells do when i listen to certain tracks), but overall i'm happy i was able to maintain some slight variety in the art i made this year through my chosen mediums and "styles" or processes i use.

this was the first year where i really wanted to have a fully rendered piece i'm proud of to represent every month. now, i wouldn't recommend this since forcing yourself to make art is not a good mindset to be in (sometimes, with how early i pushed some pieces out in certain months to get the monthly quota over with makes it seem like i'm getting paid to have a pretty year-in-review LOL). i was pretty lucky to not really have much burnout i guess?

~~~

ok now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, here’s my previous years! this is the sixth year i have made an art review chart.

lightning round review time! (probably just gonna be more boring stuff)

2018: ok, so this was the year where my prime art hosting platform was… amino… specifically smash amino. as much as i could rant about how much i hate that place now, i cant deny that it got me creating a lot of stuff. also it was an actual date archive for my traditional art because i never got in the habit of dating my physical art 🙃 uh don’t mind the absolute horrid graphic design on this one. i grabbed a template which was probably saved from a bunch of other places from amino and… didn’t really know how the formatting was supposed to work. first of all, i edited this in picsart on my phone and the chart wasn’t transparent, and second of all i didn’t know you were supposed to crop only the main focus so it could fit and be a little more clear. hence why its such a visual eyesore. i've been meaning to remake it to make it a little less bad (once i get my hands on the traditional pieces again), but i guess its shoddiness adds to its charm, much like amino. but anyway, 2018 was a bit of a turning point year for me in the smash amino art biz. on amino, i mostly made copies of official artwork from smash (character renders and so forth), and this year i actually tried experimenting with my own original ideas and scenes (my copying roots were still around at this time tho, seen in the november drawing which is based on ssbu’s mural art. i mainly moved on to copying artwork from feh). this was also the year i got my ipad and finally got into making digital art. i didn’t have the knowledge of digital art that i have today obviously, so colors and lighting were usually on the plain side. i also hit my stride with making more ambitious traditional art that incorporated backgrounds and such, and they’re pieces i’m still really proud of!

2019: so, i actually made this chart some time in 2021 or 22 because i didnt make an actual chart in 2019 officially (i forgor). which bums me out because i deleted my amino account by then, so a lot of dates for traditional pieces were flushed down the toilet the one time i needed them. so, to compensate, i tried scraping any digital piece i could to fill in some spaces, which is why some are more underwhelming than others. but yeah since this isn’t fully accurate to my art progress that year, 2019 is a bit fuzzy. main thing of note that year is midway through i got really REEAALLY into fire emblem: three houses and drew a lot of art of the characters (not shown much on the chart because they were mostly sketches and whatnot). imo there’s not much improvement or stylistic changes from 2018 in this year to note. 2020 on the other hand…

2020: if it wasn’t clear, this was my jojo phase. i got into jojo at the end of 2019 and my downward spiral into jojo hell bled into 2020 :p as such, i made a lot of jojo art. and because i made a lot of jojo art, this was the year where my style shifted drastically. i feel like it’s a common phenomenon for artists getting a total stylistic makeover after getting into jojo. whether it’s to imitate araki’s style or just trying to accommodate the characters’… features, i ended up facing the same thing. gone were big round heads with tiny mouths and in were tree trunk necks and higher effort placed in learning anatomy, both for the full body and well as the face. it was around may of this year i got procreate and moved on from ibis paint for digital art. while i still have my personal hangups with procreate, im glad i ended up investing in it since it really just works for me!!

2021: around summer 2020 in peak pandemic mood, i decided to indulge in some nostalgia and listened to some old vocaloid tunes from my middle school days. and then i kept rediscovering more stuff, and then i ended up browsing producers' individual discographies, and uh yeah i am still suffering the consequences of my vocaloid renaissance to this day. while it wasn't prominent in the 2020 chart, it really started to leak its way into my art subjects in 2021. however, i still primarily stuck to my roots with fe/"smash"/jojo fanart. this year was mainly trying to find my style again i suppose? i had already learned the ropes of procreate, its limitations, and the options it has to aid with the art making process, so it was just a matter of flinging a bunch attempts at a ~style~ to see which one i liked the most. i did try finding a painting/rendering style a lot by way of copying (mainly guessing based on speedpaints) other artists' styles and process with digital painting which ended up growing into my own thing. i know they all sort of look the same, but march, april, and october of this year all had slightly different ways of doing all the shading n rendering for painting that i liked experimenting w/ in the future.

2022: by this point, i had fully gotten used to procreate and the methods i used to make art, and the vocaloid train had no signs of stopping. i think the main thing of note this year was that i was able to break out of the "5 million overlays of pink and purple color vomit" box my digital art was set it. while it used to amuse me when i first began abusing it in my art, i guess i just sort of grew out of it? it ended up making a lot of my art look homogeneous, and it took out the fun trial and error of picking the colors to match the atmosphere myself. i also tried to get more experimental with my compositions, mainly in trying to make them more dense with Stuff as well as finally get a little more comfortable with drawing backgrounds. besides those things however, i remember feeling my art progress was very stagnant this year, with not much noticeable change from january to december. perhaps i've gotten a bit comfortable with the state it's in. regardless, still a good year all around.

~~~

whew. THAT'S finally done with. if you made it to the end of this very me-centered ramble, congrats. i will probably make reblog additions in future years to continue this little saga. idk if i'll be as detailed as i was for the 2023 lineup, but we'll see.

[sineala]

Does Steve or Tony smoke?

This question has a few possible answers, actually! So, I mean, yes, but also no. Comics are great.

The answer as it currently pertains to canon is that no, Steve and Tony do not smoke. In 2001, after Joe Quesada became EIC at Marvel, he instituted a policy that heroic characters would not be allowed to smoke; villains still could. If you look this up you can see, like, graphic novel covers that were originally comic covers except someone has edited the cigar right out of Wolverine’s mouth. I don’t know if this policy is still current (I kind of suspect it is, at least in some form), but I feel like, yeah, I wouldn’t expect Steve and Tony to smoke now.

(Incidentally, I’m pretty sure there’s also a smoking ban in the MCU.)

But, as we know, Steve and Tony have existed since long before 2001, and so that means that, absolutely, yeah, there are panels of both of them smoking.

Let’s start with Steve! Steve as a character dates from 1941, and it probably will not surprise you to learn that Golden Age Steve smoked like a chimney. He smokes in pretty much every issue, as far as I can tell. Like, I opened up Captain America Comics #1 and I found him with a pipe in his mouth at least three times. In one issue!

Interestingly, the recent Captain America Anniversary Tribute, which features modern Marvel artists doing a panel-for-panel redraw of Captain America Comics #1 (and Avengers #4) does have this panel, and guess what Steve isn’t doing?

He’s not smoking! (This is why I suspect the no-smoking policy is still current; this issue came out maybe three weeks ago.)

But, yeah, if you’re reading actual Golden Age Cap comics, Steve is absolutely definitely smoking:

However, in modern comics featuring Steve that are set during World War II, he’s not only not smoking, he explicitly doesn’t smoke. This is Captain America: Theater of War: Prisoners of Duty, which is from 2009. (Which is, yes, during Quesada’s EIC tenure.)

So it sure seems like he’s been retconned into not smoking due to the no-smoking policy. (Though, really, if you wanted some kind of in-universe explanation that keeps Steve a smoker at that point in time, “I don’t smoke” is also probably what you’d say if you did smoke but didn’t want to share your cigarettes with whoever was asking.)

But there are certainly Silver Age comics where Steve is smoking; it’s not just a Golden Age thing. The latest I’ve found is Captain America #110 (from 1969), which opens with Steve leaning against a wall lighting his pipe, and starting to smoke it:

So that’s Steve.

As for Tony, there are definitely Silver Age panels of him smoking, too.

Here Tony is in Avengers #3 with a pipe and a very fetching smoking jacket:

And here Tony is again in Avengers #7, enjoying a cigarette and a television program while he is charging up his chestplate:

You get the idea.

And, twenty years later, there’s also Iron Man #144 from 1981. If you are an Iron Man fan, you will be familiar with this issue as the flashback issue that retcons Rhodey into Tony’s life as a Marine whom Tony meets in Vietnam when he has just become Iron Man, has escaped his captors, and is trying to get home.

What you may not remember is that this issue includes Tony and Rhodey sharing a joint. No, I’m not kidding.

Sadly, Tony doesn’t get a hit, because he accidentally crushes the joint in his big Iron Man hands, but he, uh, definitely doesn’t seem opposed to getting high with Rhodey:

I mean, okay, yeah, it doesn’t have to be marijuana. We aren’t told what it is, and it could conceivably be anything that’s hand-rolled, which would include tobacco, but come on. Come on. It’s weed. Right? Who’s with me?

For the record, Rhodey is Not Real Thrilled that Tony has accidentally crushed it:

So, anyway, yeah, there’s what I know about Steve and Tony smoking.

[rohad93]

Moonlit Masquerade: Replacement

Pt 2 of Post- Moonlit Masquerade 

It was Friday morning as Luz rolled over in bed, stretching the kinks out of her muscles. She blinked blearily into the sunlight that was streaming into her room; blinding her.

She smacked her mouth a few times, trying to rid it of that horrible morning taste as she slowly sat herself up and scratched her head. She could feel her hair sticking up in every direction as she did and half-heartedly tried to comb her fingers through it. It was starting to get longer than she usually let it grow, which made sense. She'd had her last haircut about a month before she'd come to the Boiling Isles and it had been about two and a half months since she'd chased Owlbert through the portal.

Maybe she could get it cut in town this weekend. If she was lucky she could take Amity along and they could make a date out of it afterward.

Or she could invite Gus and Willow too and they could all hang out in town afterward, she definitely needed to spend more time with her other friends, she had been spending a lot of her free time with Amity, which her friends assured her they understood, but she was determined to make time for everyone.

Amity may not even be able to hang out this weekend, or Gus and Willow, which was a disappointing thought but she'd just talk to them at lunch.

With that thought, she quickly set about getting dressed for school.

She could smell food being cooked even before she started thundering down the stairs toward the kitchen.

"Morning!" She smiled, walking over to her seat and leaning down to kiss the top of King's head as she passed, making him giggle in his seat.

"Good morning, Luz." Lilith nodded to her as she sipped on her customary morning cup of tea.

"Hey, kid. I made pancakes!" Eda said, setting a plate in front of her.

"Oh, my favorite!" Luz wasted no time digging into her meal.

Eda wasn't the best cook, actually for the most part she was pretty bad, but she tried. She'd gotten pretty good at pancakes though; which Luz was grateful for.

They were good, and when she made them Luz always stuffed herself to bursting, no matter how miserable she would be on her way to school and through her first couple hours of class.

Today was no exception.

When her plate was all but licked clean she stood and shouldered her bag.

"You got plans for the weekend, kid?" her mentor asked her from her place at the sink, washing the pancake pan.

"I need to get a haircut, I figured I'd see if Amity or Willow and Gus wanted to come with me and hang out in town after," she said shrugging.

"Well if ya want, I can cut your hair and you can still hang out with your girlfriend and the rest of the nerd brigade after." The witch offered.

"You? Cut hair?" Lilith snorted from her place at the table and her sister shot her a glare.

"Yea, that'd be great!" She beamed at Eda and the glare faded into a soft smile as she looked down at Luz.

"Great, I'll get my shears!" She grinned and Luz wasn't sure if she was kidding or not. It was hard to tell sometimes, she laughed anyway as she started for the door.

"I gotta get to school, bye!" She turned to go but was yanked back by her bag.

"Don't forget your lunch." Eda held up a paper sack with a knowing grin.

"Oh, right." She smiled taking the bag. "Thanks, mom."

She froze, bag In hand.

Luz blinked and looked up at the older witch who was staring back at her wide-eyed and mouth ajar.

The rest of the kitchen had also gone silent. Lilith was looking at them equally shocked and King blinked, looking around at all the suddenly quiet woman. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on but the sudden oppressive silence kept him quiet.

"I mean… I gotta go!" Luz turned and ran out of the house, clutching her lunch to her chest, the door slamming shut behind her.

Eda watched her go, still not saying anything.

Lilith watched her sister quietly as she stood there, frozen, watching Luz leave the house.

"Edalyn?" she called and that seemed to jog Eda out of it.

"Huh? Oh, yeah." She turned back to the sink and started washing the pans again but there was a distinct jerkiness to her movements.

"That was… unexpected," she said testingly. Eda made an agreeing noise but nothing more as she continued to scrub at the pans.

She shared a brief look with the demon sitting at the table, who seemed to get the hint and grabbed his plate before hopping down out of his chair and trotting into the living room.

Lilith rose and walked over to the sink, stopping a few feet from her sister.

"Edalyn?"

"What?" It lacked any of its usual bite or snark.

"Are you alright?" she asked, still looking at the back of Eda's head.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she grunted.

Lilith pursed her lips, no point beating around the bramble-thorns.

"Because Luz just called you 'mom'," she said and again Eda froze at the word, not turning away from the sink.

"So?" Eda's voice was tight and Lilith blinked before stepping closer to peer around her sister's mane of hair.

"Oh"

Eda jerked, finally turning to look at her elder sister and Lilith could clearly see the water welling up in her sister's dual-colored eyes.

"What?" she snapped, glaring, but the tremble in her voice made it lose any of its bite.

"You know…," she started slowly. "It's alright to be happy she called you that," she finished and Eda turned away sharply.

"Luz doesn't need someone like me."

"Would you leave the child to fend for herself?"

"I never said I wouldn't take care of her!" Eda growled, turning a glare on her sister, but it quickly died. "Luz has a mom."

"That she may never be able to return to. We have heard not even a whisper of another portal to the human world. As far as we know yours was the only one, you may need to consider that Luz may never leave the Isles, what then?"

"I'll take care of her." Was the simple answer. "But she's not my kid," Eda managed to mumble. Lilith cocked a brow at that.

"But It's alright to think of her as yours." She pushed. "She clearly, for reasons I do not understand, thinks very highly of you." When the light jab didn't elicit the usual response she frowned. Lilith felt she had a pretty good idea of why her sister seemed so conflicted.

"What happened with the portal was… unfortunate… but Luz made that choice, to save you. You shouldn't feel so guilty about being happy that she views you that way."

Eda's grip on the panhandle tightened.

Her sister was hitting the nail on the head and she didn't like it.

She did feel guilty.

Luz was stuck here because of her, she didn't have any right to be happy about it, but she was.

She loved that kid, fiercely; like she'd never loved anyone.

Of course, Lilly could tell too.

She sighed, looking at her sister tiredly out of the corner of her gray eye.

"If Luz needs me, she's got me, she knows that, but I'm not gonna go and try to replace her mom."

"Nor should you, but there's no reason to beat yourself up over it if she views you that way, nor being happy about it," Lilith said.

Eda grunted in response, conversation over and Lilith walked away. Once she was gone Eda allowed herself to smile.

~ ~

Luz ran till she was almost to school, mind racing with complicated thoughts and feelings.

She had called Eda 'mom', and it had slipped out so naturally; too naturally.

She was frowning, still lost in thought when she arrived at school. Her friends and Amity were standing near the front steps, waiting for her.

"Hey, Luz!" Gus called and Willow waved at her as she walked up to them, stopping next to Amity

"Hey guys." she smiled but it was lackluster at best. The three of them frowned.

"Uh, you okay?" Willow asked.

"Huh, yeah, I'm fine…" she gripped the strap of her bag tightly. The three witches shared a glance.

"Are you sure?"

She looked up to see her girlfriends concerned, gold eyes trained on her. She could feel Gus and Willow's looks as well.

She nodded, not trusting her voice right now.

The bell's scream echoed through the courtyard, making her jump.

"We better get going," Gus said and Willow nodded and turned to follow him into the school, but not before she shot Amity a look over her shoulder.

The youngest Blight nodded.

The courtyard was practically empty now as students began to make their way to their classes.

"I better head to the construction track hall…," Luz mumbled, taking a step, but was stopped as Amity grabbed her hand. Luz blinked at her, waiting, both eyebrows raised questioningly. Amity took a step closer

"Hey, you know you can talk to me if somethings wrong, right?" she asked quietly.

"I know… I just…" Luz trailed off, looking at the ground.

Amity's hand wrapped around hers squeezed reassuringly and Luz couldn't help but squeeze back.

"It's just a lot right now… later?" Luz looked back up at her and Amity nodded giving another light squeeze before sliding her hand out of Luz's.

"Later" she repeated before she hurried up the steps into the building.

The day dragged for Luz.

Lunch was a little tense, her friends could tell that something was bothering her, but she was sure Amity had talked to Willow at some point because none of them tried to ask her what was wrong, though they clearly wanted to. For that she was glad. She was touched by their concern, but she still wasn't ready to talk yet. She was still trying to organize all her mixed up feelings.

Time ticked by, heedless of her inner turmoil, and before she knew it the final bell screamed and she was walking down the steps of the school, and around the building where her teleportation glyph was waiting, hidden by the foliage.

Like her illusion glyphs, it seemed to stay in place even after use, which was convenient since it was the most complicated one in her arsenal. It would have been a pain to redraw after every use.

She tapped her hands to it and thought of Amity's secret room.

Once the portal blazed to life she stepped through and appeared inside the room and the portal blinked out of existence.

The room was empty, she'd beaten Amity here, which she usually did on Fridays, abominations were farther away from the front of the school than the construction track.

She dropped her bag on the floor and flopped face-first into the cushions on the floor with a tired sigh.

It was about 5 minutes later that she heard the portal once again appear in the room, but she didn't move.

She listened to Amity's quiet shuffling as she put her school things on her desk.

A moment later the cushions shifted, but she still didn't move and neither did Amity for a few minutes.

Then there were fingers running through her hair comfortingly, but still, no words were spoken.

She hummed and turned her head, peeking out from the fabric to find Amity sitting on the floor next to her, looking concerned.

Luz hated it when anyone worried about her, but she especially hated it when she caused Amity to worry.

The witch, for her part, said nothing, just waited patiently for Luz to be ready to talk.

Luz sighed and pushed herself up, flipping around to sit on the cushions.

"I called Eda 'mom' this morning," she finally mumbled, but she knew Amity had heard her.

"Okay?" Amity said, waiting, sure that could be embarrassing, she’s called some of her teacher’s ‘mom’ before, but clearly Luz was bothered by this for some reason.

The Latina pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

"I feel… guilty," she finally mumbled,

"Why?"

"Because she's not… because… my mom is out there, in the human world, not knowing that I'm here, that when summer is over I'm not… coming back; that I've replaced her," she choked out the last words, eyes filling with tears.

Amity wrapped an arm around Luz's back and the human leaned into the touch, seeking comfort. Amity wrapped her other arm around her trembling form.

"It's okay, Luz." Amity tried to soothe.

"I miss her a lot… and I want to see her again, but… I also don't want to leave…" she looked up at Amity, tears dripping down her cheeks. "That's awful isn't it?" she sniffled.

"I don't think it's awful." Amity wiped at the tears.

"But I've replaced her! I don't want to go back, even if I could, and I feel terrible about it, that I'd just leave her alone!" Her voice cracked with a sob, she buried her face in Amity's neck.

She ran her fingers through her hair, her heart ached for Luz.

"It's okay to want something even if it makes you feel guilty, and you're not doing it on purpose… even if you wanted to go back you can't, that's not your fault."

"I destroyed the portal…," she choked.

"To save Eda."

"It was my fault she was captured in the first place…," she hiccuped, through another choked cry.

"You were trying to help her… and maybe you were going about it the wrong way, but you were doing it for the right reasons…," Amity mumbled. "I don't know your mom, but if the way you talk about her means anything, I think she'd just be happy that you're okay, even if it's in a whole different world."

Luz didn't say anything, just cried.

They sat there quietly for a while until Luz's tears started to dry.

"I guess… I just didn't realize how much she acts like my mom… kinda." Luz couldn't help the small wet chuckle at the comparison.

Amity smiled but didn't say anything.

"She makes me breakfast and packs my lunch… always asks me how school was when I get home… it makes me feel guilty..." she trailed off still sniffling.

"Just because you love Eda doesn't mean she's going to replace your mom and she'd probably be glad to know someone is taking care of you," Amity hummed.

"Yeah…," she mumbled.

After a while, Luz finally pulled away and wiped at her eyes with the heels of her palms before finally looking at her.

"Thanks, Amity," she said quietly, a small smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

Amity smiled back, glad that she was no longer crying.

"I should probably head home…" she sighed and stood, Amity following.

"Right…"

"Meet me in town tomorrow, same place and time?" she asked.

"I'll be there." Amity smiled.

Luz quickly kissed her cheek, saying a quick bye before activating her glyph and teleporting home.

~ ~ ~

It was later that evening when Luz finally came out of her room and walked down the hall to Eda's door.

She hesitated a second before knocking on the closed door.

"What?" Came from the annoyed call from the other side.

"It's me, can I come in?"

There was a brief pause.

"Sure, Kid."

Luz peeked inside to see her mentor laying haphazardly in her nest, she sat up as Luz slipped inside, shutting the door behind her.

"Hey… can I talk to you?" She asked.

Eda patted the spot next to her.

Luz climbed in and settled herself down next to her mentor.

"What's up, Kiddo?" she asked, seeing the pensive look on her face.

"It's… about this morning…" she started.

"Ah, it's okay, Luz, I know ya didn't mean it." She waved a hand, even though it hurt a little to say that, which immediately made her feel guilty.

Luz bit her lip, shuffling around in the branches and grass.

"But… I did, I guess." She looked up at Eda, who was starting back, surprised and Luz felt her face heat up.

"I… miss my mom… but I feel like I should miss her a lot more, but I don't… because I have you," she mumbled, looking down at her hands. "I feel guilty… like I've replaced her…" she frowned.

Eda watched her quietly for a moment before wrapping an arm around her and tugging in close.

"Listen, Luz," she started, drawing the girl's eyes back up to her. "I'm not gonna replace your mom, and I wouldn't want too and trust me, I doubt I'd be a very good replacement even if I was… but, I think it's time we took a hard look at the facts here. You might be here for… a while." she said after a long pause, carefully omitting the word 'forever'.

To her surprise, Luz just nodded.

"But I'll tell you this: I love you, kid, and so long as you're here, I'm gonna take care of you, okay?" She squeezed the girl's shoulders and Luz leaned into her hold, smiling. " If the ‘M’ words slips out sometimes… we’ll just roll with it… you shouldn't feel guilty about anything."

"Amity said something similar."

"Well, you should listen to her, your girlfriend's smart," she chuckled. "All that being said, I think it's time we got you some permanent stuff."

"Like what?"

"Well, you need a scroll so your friends and I can actually get a hold of you when you're off causing trouble… heck you need a bed!" She flung out an arm.

"I would like a bed…" she admitted sheepishly.

"Then it's settled, tomorrow’s Saturday, we'll go out and get some stuff."

"Thanks, Eda." She smiled up at her.

"Sure thing, Kid." She squeezed your shoulders.

[sachiro]

The Many Faces of Victor Nikiforov - Episode 10

The round and golden episode 10 is finally upon us and with it comes a ton of lighting improvements and frame redraws. Out of all the episodes, this is probably the one in which the blu-ray updates are the most noticeable.

That said, there’s also so much content in this episode. There’s no way I could cover everything there is to talk about regarding Victor in just 10 gifs but I’m excited to delve in anyway so let’s go!

The first thing I’d like to talk about is Victor and his need for space to recharge. Unlike Yuuri who chooses to sleep off his jetlag, Victor decides to go up to the roof’s pool in the middle of winter, a time when there’s least likely to be other people there, to get some space to think. A lot of the time, Victor plays himself off as being a lot more social than he is, but in reality he’s an introvert. He needs his alone time to recharge his energy and taking it isn’t something new to him if his message of needing to get completely away from skating to think is anything to go by.

For this second choice, it may not be a moving image but I love it for its composition – the coaches (adults) in the background and the skaters + Victor (young adults/kids) in the foreground. I’ve always felt like this image looks like a family with the adults looking on from the back. That said, it really brings to light just how young all of the skaters (including Victor) are. Victor may be the oldest there but he’s still only 27. As I’ve heard it said by a friend, Victor is still choosing to sit at the kiddy table instead of standing back with the adults. This isn’t a negative thing at all though. He’s at an age where he can choose which direction to go; he can choose to stand back with the other coaches and observe or he can spend his time enjoying the fun with the others skaters, most of which are still within his generational age range.

This entire portion with Victor taking Yuuri shopping brings up an important point to this episode – that Victor is trying his best to be observant of Yuuri and help him without the need to say anything. This is a direct response to Yuuri’s message to Victor in episode 7 and ever since then you can see how he’s been working with those words in mind. He takes notice of the things that make Yuuri relax and does his best to do them with him. Victor has learned that the best way to comfort Yuuri is through action and not words.

But not everything is as simple as dragging Yuuri along on a shopping spree. That doesn’t mean that it all goes to shit, however. In this case, they have an argument which boils down to both of them trying to solve an issue in their own way and conflicting over how the two methods oppose each other (Yuuri wants to make up for a mistake and Victor wants to just forget it and move on). But the important part in all of this is that they resolve their differences like adults. They don’t attack each other with actions or words and don’t hold it against each other. They get the message across that they’re upset then both decide to move on.  It’s said that no relationship is perfect but having good communication and conflict resolution skills is honestly the closest way to get there.

Aside from my love of this fifth gif as a shot in general, I’d like to bring us back to the idea of Victor being observant of Yuuri. Victor is very explicit about it here, he talks about how he’s noticed the small things – how Yuuri’s eyes shine when he’s looking for something, how that thing is like a dowsing rod, and how the best thing Victor can do is just stay silent and let Yuuri do as he will. We may get the chance to see Victor’s stumbles along the way to better understanding Yuuri but no one can deny that he’s a fast learner. As a general rule, he only has to be told anything once to remember it and apply it to his actions and thoughts as we can see here and earlier on through the episode.

I chose this sixth gif, out of all the possible ring scene choices, because of how purely happy Victor looks. A lot of the time Victor has a mask on, but in this moment, he is completely and utterly open and honest with his expression. As much as Yuuri is handing Victor his heart, Victor is absolutely doing the same. We may see a lot of the series through Yuuri’s point of view, and a lot of Victor’s emotional conversations with Yuuri might be covered in skating metaphors, but this scene is undoubtedly just as important to Victor as it is to Yuuri. We even get Victor’s internal monologue here. But at the end of the day, no matter what words anyone puts to this scene, Victor’s pure contentment is one of the few unarguable things that we can get out of it.

One of the things I love about Victor is how emotive he actually is. His mask isn’t actually as solid as it initially appears, and this seventh gif displays that perfectly. The clip is short and the eyes naturally gravitate to the clapping motions and Yuuri’s reaction but it’s Victor’s expression that I’d like to talk about. He appears proud a moment later, flashing the ring and citing it as an engagement ring, but his first reaction is to blush at the attention and topic being brought forth. Phichit brings up the idea of marriage, and unlike Yuuri’s response of “oh no, he’s got the wrong idea”, Victor’s face says something more along the lines of “well, that’s not quite it but I wouldn’t be against that”.

Honestly, this eighth gif has so much about it I love that I’m not sure where to start. The sunrise that implies the beginning of something new, the hand that comes up to shield Victor’s face but lets the beams of light through anyway, the ring that takes a center point in the shot even if it’s over shone by the sun, and the beach that has been given special meaning in regards to Victor’s personal relationship with Yuuri all come to mind instantly. Similar to the start of the episode, Victor is taking personal time to figure out his thoughts (and he has a lot to think over). He’s starting a new chapter of his life. But can he allow himself to? Can he allow himself to step away from being a competitive skater forever, put his career and medals aside, and chase a new happiness off the ice? There’s just so much that’s going on in short clip, and the silence that’s used as background feels just as fitting in its emptiness as it doesn’t when contrasted with the raging thoughts that are sure to be going on in Victor’s mind.

Unfortunately, Victor gets a very firm reminder that he and Yuuri aren’t the only two people that have a weigh-in on Victor’s career direction. Yurio here serves to represent not just himself but everyone else as well. Victor may be ready to let go of his skating career and move on with his life but the rest of the world isn’t yet (that actually includes Yuuri too, as we see at the end of the next episode). Something in particular I’d like to focus on in this scene, however, is the height difference between Victor and Yurio and how that’s used in their body language. When Victor first turns around to respond to Yurio’s taunts, he leans down to get on Yurio’s level – like an adult entertaining a child. But the moment that Yurio tells Victor to just retire already (in a way that makes it sound like nothing Victor has done has left a mark, a thing which Victor may not even realize he values yet), he stands up to his full height and forces Yurio to look up to him instead. The shaking hand may have been removed from the updated version of this episode but I honestly don’t feel like it’s needed with the body language that already screams hostility on both ends (actually, even more so Victor’s than Yurio’s here). As much as Victor might want to consider retiring from the ice and settling down, the world just isn’t ready for it yet and is intent on dragging him back under.

And for this last gif… there’s so much I could say but I’ll focus on Victor’s expression. Out of all the reactions he could have, he ends up with a look of blank shock. Something is happening in front of him that goes beyond anything he could have imagined. I do actually believe that this clip takes place post-pole dancing competition and pre-dancing with Victor. Cute boy jumping on him aside, I think the thing that really sparks Victor is the mention of coaching. Before now, Victor has never really had a path laid out regarding his career past competing until he physically can’t anymore. In the end, blank shock turning into a burst of inspiration might be the only realistic response to it after all!

I guarantee that I didn’t cover nearly as much as I could have (and wanted to) in this episode but for now this will have to do. I hope everyone enjoyed reading my thoughts and look forward to next week as we get into the final stretch!

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [Duetto]

Bonus because Victor’s little twirl is too cute not to share:

[luwucas04]

About 4000 (I am so sorry) Words Concerning Films that Helped Define My Existence

Ah, movies. So much in one package. Story, music, visuals, what’s not to love? Today I shall be elaborating on the most noteworthy films in the thrilling ever-changing saga that continues to be my life. Screenplay alongside a screenplay, if you will (please take this statement as modestly as you can).

The first ever thing in my entire life that I remember being an avid and enthusiastic fan about was the original Star Wars saga, written and directed by George Lucas, spanning May 1977 (A New Hope) – May 2005 (Revenge of the Sith).

As mentioned in the podcast and as you may be able to tell from said podcast, I can’t really pinpoint an exact point in my life where I was introduced to it as it was kinda integrated into my upbringing from the get-go—and due to this it’s a very near and dear franchise to me. And oh boy fun fact my first ever childhood crush was Luke Skywalker (I vividly recall my uncle asking why I had his page bookmarked haha). I remember it was something that I would always watch with my dad and or grandpa, and then when I couldn’t find the VCR set that we had for it, I officially commenced my illicit streaming career (not really though, I didn’t get very far. Only crappy 20-minute clips on YouTube). Star Wars for me was the first thing that I actively sought out stuff for or showed genuine interest in pursuing if that makes sense. Like, you’d watch whatever movies or shows were thrown at you and you never thought much of them. Ohoho not Star Wars, though, that one lasted years. My cousin and I would always bring our little action figures to play with whenever we visited—or we’d find long-ish sticks in the backyard and have lightsaber fights, I got the video games, posters, Lego sets of ships (X-wing and Y-wing to be exact), an entire encyclopedia that I still own to this day (I just checked and there’s a date written inside, April 9th 2010 (which is my 7th birthday)), and of course inspiration for my own art and such. I remember I made this magazine that was essentially just me redrawing pages from the guidebook I had. I still have it, too! Sitting at the bottom of a drawer right now. Also, later on for some reason I absolutely loved drawing Ashoka Tano. Over and over again man. I drew her taking up my cousin’s entire driveway in chalk once.

Not only are the Star Wars films a nostalgic and comforting series, but it held onto its marvel throughout the. Wow well over 10 whole years, I’m getting old. Additionally, because at the time we didn’t have as much access to the things we can achieve with modern technology, I was basically all on my own with it. I fueled my own fascination. And shockingly, not a lot of people in my elementary school (up until maybe grade 6-7) showed much interest in it either. So it was pretty much just me myself and I, and occasionally my cousin whenever he visited, and I think that made it all the more special to me. Also, at the time I think it was geared way more toward kids. There weren’t series like The Mandalorian or active internet communities that were obsessed with the series as far as I was aware, so there wasn’t the same quantity of content nor overall enthusiasm around it. Nonetheless, it was and still is a very personal series due to how engrained it is into basically every aspect of my childhood. I’ll try not to be too repetitive with what I said in the podcast, but ultimately the clear nature of the franchise (attractive character designs, colours, setting in general (it’s an action-packed space adventure what’s not to love)) is what really made me latch onto it, and it kickstarted my interest in the very essence of media and understanding the film medium and what it has to offer. I remember asking how they got Jar Jar to exist on screen and he told me they made him out of CGI, and I interpreted that as they somehow made a real-life computer model out of him and that they were actually interacting with like a physical, solid hologram. Anyway, revisiting the franchise and diving into more of its intricacies now (like the production diaries) is like an absolute goldmine. There are so many aspects of it that 100% contributed to and nurtured my goals, passions, and ultimately who I am as a person. Here is some of my very recent art for good measure:

Up next up we got Lord of the Rings (dir. Peter Jackson, December 2001 – December 2003) or I guess a better way to put it would be those plus The Hobbit (December 2012 – December 2014) trilogy. I think it was earlier than the Marvel phase (which follows this section) because like Star Wars I can’t really remember my first viewing of it, but I definitely watched it all. It might’ve been around grade 3 so 2011-ish? Quick anecdote, one time I had a sleepover I was really excited for, and as we all know when you’re excited for something as a kid and it’s later on in the day, time doesn’t actually pass at all, and so my genius ass decided to flip on The Fellowship of the Ring and boom it was 5 pm and time to leave. Also my grandparents from my mom’s side of the family (they’re German so we call them oma and opa) were visiting once and my opa (grandpa equivalent) wanted to watch something so I was like “omg Lord of the Rings is perfect there are so many characters he can feel empowered by (Gandalf and Saruman because they’re old)”. Phenomenal logic—now thinking back it was probably much too violent for his tastes but yknow.

I love Lord of the Rings so much because it’s the true embodiment of an ideal fantasy story; there’s such pure character dynamics and personalities and Tolkien created such an incredibly solid world in which these stories take place. Man knew his stuff, and in turn provided a charming and utterly wonderful scape for young minds to roam free within. I was going to talk about this if I did my other culminating idea regarding masculinity within the media, but I have the perfect opportunity to do so here: something so great about said world is how sincere and genuine a lot of the male characters are (yknow minus people like Denethor and Alfred). Namely the fellowship, they all openly care for and are affectionate towards one another, something we rarely see between men both in modern media and in real life. Aragorn is a perfect example of someone owning and being comfortable in his masculinity. He is kind to and uplifts others, and communicates openly with them. He isn’t afraid of being intimate and vulnerable towards them, either. We see this in Boromir’s death scene. Aragorn doesn’t patronize him for trying to take the Ring, he consoles Boromir in his last moments and they treat each other with the utmost tenderness and respect—not callously or stiffly. Right after decapitating an orc, Aragorn is still able to run to his side, hold him, and kiss him on the forehead following his passing. Aragorn also isn’t afraid to share fame or glory, in fact he never seeks it out in the first place despite his lineage. It was at the battle of Helm’s Deep that he embraced that destine to be king, not out of lust for power, but because these people needed guidance and leadership and he could provide it for them. He elevates others in an incredibly positive and empowering way, especially Frodo and Éowyn, and is content with the fact that the story is not about him. Even at his own coronation, he directs every single person’s attention to the literal earth-saving feat that the hobbits have achieved in light of his own massive accomplishment. He is such a great role model to have been able to look up and aspire to be like, and I wish there were more characters and people like him.

I was a fan of those original films at an earlier point in my life, but the thing that brought that interest back a little stronger was undoubtedly the release of the Hobbit prequels. Like the Star Wars prequels, everyone can say what they want but they are very gorgeous to me. I skipped out on seeing Frozen with my class to go see The Desolation of Smaug with my dad and that was SUCH a good decision. Although, I’m rewatching them all now and Battle of the Five Armies kinda sucks at the beginning. They kill Smaug in like the first five minutes and like it wasn’t bad but it was very anticlimactic. I also don’t like how they shoved Legolas in there, his personality is really jaded and he’s kind of a big prick in those films. But it’s fine I love Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage and the rest of the dwarves the most. They were obviously the most significant and I like them a lot, and there are three movies as opposed to the one book so there’s even more content!

WHEW sorry about that anyway The Hobbit really was the revival/rekindling of that past love for Tolkien’s world. I also had a good close friend who was also along for the ride as well—being able to be into these things alongside someone is always fun and I’m grateful she was there and shared my same energy. She had the Lego game for that one, very similar free-roam concept as my Marvel one (coming up next), so we had lots of fun with that too. To reiterate, I am rewatching these movies again now as an older person with like an actual conscience, and my takeaway from them is vastly different on more of like… a philosophical level, I suppose. I appreciate the process of things more and the backstory behind Tolkien’s lore and the timeless characters and deeper meanings that he’s conceived. But that wouldn’t be very chronological of me to go into it here so moving on.

Proceeding next, around grade four at the most (so just after it came out), I watched The Avengers (dir. Joss Whedon, 2012). Not only did this single-handedly make my art convictions explode (in a good way), it also instigated my love for soundtracks (and also the entire Marvel universe but we’ll obviously be covering that very soon).

The Avengers was like an epiphany for me. Literally ground-breaking and earth-shattering. Changed my entire 10-year-old life. It was all that I ever wanted and more, and since it was around 2012-13 that I became aware of its existence, the internet community was blossoming with possibilities and content. That same friend liked it as well! My Avengers/Marvel phase definitely rivals my Star Wars phase; I think I watched The Avengers first, and then my dad was like “yeah ok you need to watch everything else now” and so henceforth Captain America and Iron Man and Thor. Those were very good times, and I actually remember experiencing all of them for the first time ever. The Christmas of 2013 was absolutely wild. I only got Marvel related gifts which was incredible at the time. My first ever ‘art of’ book was for the Avengers film, too! I also got an arc reactor shirt that actually lit up and I thought that was the absolute coolest thing ever, and then I remember I cut my tongue on this candy I was eating and my mouth bled profusely for a while. However the most iconic gift of all was my copy of Lego Marvel Superheroes for the PS3. I finished it in about 2 days, and it’s the only Lego game that I’ve gotten 100% completed progress on. I love that game dearly and still play it sometimes. The thing that I love specifically about it was the ability to free-roam the entirety of New York City as any character you wanted, me and that friend would do that exclusively for hours on end and make up our own stories with all the characters. Here is Galactus perusing the streets

Speaking of characters, this was the first thing that really got me making up and drawing a shit ton (apologies for lack of a better phrase) of original characters. I’d make superhero characters for me and my friend (ok I guess I should give her a name huh), Mackenzie, and even for random people in my class cause we needed to fill in some blanks in the stories we’d make. I’d create comics, write little stories, make variation after variation of these people we came up with, and of course like normal children me and Mackenzie would go to the park near my old house and pretend we were said characters. Man it was so fun. Then we’d do all those personality quizzes to find out which member you were most like. Mackenzie and I would do these quizzes on none other than our state-of-the-art BlackBerry playbooks. For me it was usually either Iron Man or Thor, and Mackenzie had this weird curse where she’d only ever get Loki as a result for anything at all which was very hilarious to me. Circling back to soundtracks, The Avengers OST was one of my first full album purchases. The main theme was my favourite track out of all of them for obvious reasons, but I still paid respects to all of them and listened to it often. Since I bought it with my dad’s Apple ID, it’d show up on the communal iPad that we used for music in the kitchen and I have full recollection of my grandpa playing it on blast in the morning to wake us up one time. I was aggravated at first but then when I realized what it was I was like ah yes of course. After the Avengers soundtrack, I got the Wolverine (2013) OST and that was fun but I didn’t like all the tracks in the same way, but THEN I got the Days of Future Past soundtrack. THAT is a good soundtrack AND a phenomenal film.

Anyway, after that I was a Marvel connoisseur for a little while. Like Star Wars I got an entire character encyclopedia, a bunch of comics, posters, you name it. My parents and sister also enjoyed dabbling in stuff too; we’d watch the animated series together on Netflix and eventually ended up seeing all the new movies together when they came out in theatres (except not my mom though cause she gets motion sickness from action films). Marvel was a staple in the adolescence stage of my life before I was introduced to anime (then it was all downhill from there (I am kidding anime was a part of my life that I look back at with great fondness)). It was reason for so much of what I explored with my art and my own imagination, and was one of my first experiences in what it was like to be a part of a fandom-esque community. There were also memes ripe for the picking when it came to Marvel; as one can assume I had no access to memes in kindergarten to grade 1 in the late 2000s. It was such a lovely and warm point in my life, something that established what kind of passion I really poured into something when I really liked it. And akin to Star Wars, there’s just so much to like about it. There’s so much to offer, an array of colourful characters and storylines—and of course, creative liberty when it came to superpowers and that whole narrative. The sky was literally the limit. Here is some of my ancient 2014 portraiture that I dug up for the sake of this assignment

Ok heads up we are now veering AWAY from childhood content and touching on a film that played a more personal part, namely during a very pivotal point, in my life. I picked up The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky, 1999) at a bookstore and read it at the speed of light; I was crying in my room on my bed by the time I finished it. I love how we see Charlie’s character change over the course of the novel, not only through what he describes or how he perceives things but his style of writing in general. Anyway, I wanted to read the novel first before I watched the movie (dir. Stephen Chbosky 2012), and I was pleasantly surprised by how accurate the movie is to the book (well duh the author directed it). I read/watched this right before I started high school, so I was kind of (but not really considering the built-up childhood trauma he has yikes) in the same position as the protagonist, Charlie, as he was starting out (minus a lot of the major aspects of his character and what he went/goes through (like drugs)). A lot of the things that he learns were really important takeaways for me before heading into that new chapter of life like he did.

Contrary to the title of the (I know it started out as a novel but I’m just gonna say film) film, you need to put yourself out there and advocate for yourself in life. It’s great to be a trustworthy individual whom everyone is vaguely aware of and likes, but you need to approach things with reason and make yourself known somehow. At the time, both before and during grade 9, and even still sometimes in the present (though I do it more deliberately now), I found myself just standing on the sidelines as life happened before me and I let it sweep me away without having any feet planted on the ground. It was like I wasn’t in control of it, and in turn I might’ve struggled in some areas more than I should have. I didn’t own anything, like I wasn’t totally present. Similar to Charlie, I was a person who’d always be there for others, someone people could talk to and confide in, and ultimately someone people truly enjoyed having around—which is pretty great. But I didn’t fully know my position or what I ultimately wanted in any of those situations. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for my entire freshman experience and I absolutely wouldn’t have wanted it any other way considering all personal circumstances, but with that foreknowledge of the importance of making a name for yourself, especially in high school, I think I was able to branch out with ease a bit more than I would have without it. I at least was aware of what was going on in that sense. That movie is really special to me because it ended up being a pseudo-mirror of my own experiences. Charlie’s English teacher, Bill, embraced his writing abilities and urged him to participate more, share his own thoughts, and express more of his personality by giving him books for extra reading. My first ever semester of Laurier did the exact same for me as Bill did for Charlie. It fostered my interests and intellectual abilities, and you guys constantly urged me and everyone else to go above and beyond what we were used to because you knew we could do it (even though I feel like I could’ve done a lot better on some things as my marks in grade 9 are a bit lower than I’d like them to be, but hey it was a time of adjustment and I did my best and that’s what matters). As a direct result of Laurier, I’m really lucky to have been surrounded by an amazing group of passionate students, a handful of which became my closest friends throughout high school, and that my very first teachers of the day were people who uplifted me and genuinely cared not only about furthering my academic work, but about my growth as a person.

Whew let’s wade out of the sap and get into some more energetic stuff!!! To tie off this recollection of my life through film the most recent and notable movie that impacted my life was, the one and only, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman, 2018). Similar to The Desolation of Smaug and Frozen, I went with my dad to the cinema but parted ways with him to watch this movie by my lonesome (he went to the Aquaman theatre instead smh). Again, phenomenal choice. I talked about this in my grade 11 blog, but Spider-Verse is an absolute masterpiece in every way shape and form.

At the point I watched it, I knew what I wanted to generally do with my life (be part of the art industry) and the visuals of this movie alone were enough to make me want to elope with it and never see or talk to anyone ever again. It is such a gorgeous film. The way they strayed from the yucky 3D conventions norm—and there is literally no way they could’ve done the majority of what they did in that movie effectively if they did it live action. Or, they could definitely try and make an attempt, but it’d look like garbage. For example, a lot of the action scenes in general and also when they become abstracted like with the particle collider. 40-60 fps would not do that sense of movement justice at all. Too smooth. Not enough grit and personality.

Anyway, they also pioneered new animation techniques in mixing 2D and 3D, and explored a newer superhero trope where the main character’s own mundane life struggles are equally as important as him trying to sort things out with these new powers. It’s more of a battle between what Miles wants with his own personal life—new school, the friends he won’t be able to see because of said new school, owning his own abilities and adjusting to change. Then on top of that he’s met with all these alternate-dimension people that he has to work and be on par with. Aside from the art, I thought the overall message was every special: Miles learns through trial and tribulations, unsureness—and most importantly, failure. Confidence and optimism, in regard to what he thinks he can and can’t do, is vital. Amidst everything he is faced with, he starts out as just another kid who wants to be just another kid. But we all have something special inside us that we must choose to embrace if we want to truly flourish. We see him come to terms with the fact that he really is capable of greatness if he sets his mind to it—and that’s the main message: anyone can wear the mask. And can we talk about that soundtrack??? Not only the instrumentals, but the actual songs were great too! “Sunflower” and “What’s Up Danger”? Lovely and fitting. And back to the OST, the Prowler’s theme??? Shivers.

There is such a unique and beautiful vibe to this movie, and it’s inspired me in more ways than one. Aside from that nice motivational stuff, it also has recently played a tremendous part in developing my own art. All of the artists who worked on the film are people I immediately tried to find on social media so I could see more of their work. I purchased the art book, and even bought a 2D sequence illustration course provided by one of the art directors, Patrick O’Keefe. That course also came with the (digital) brushes he uses, and I’ve used them in pretty much every single one of my pieces since downloading them. This movie really showed me the possibilities of what could be achieved in the art industry, and it made me want to be a part of it so much more than I was before. I want to be involved in revolutionary visual achievements, and I want to develop characters and stories and worlds that are as interesting and loveable as the ones in Spider-Verse. (my stuff featured below)

So there you have it folks, 5 (five) of the most significant movies in my life relayed in a whopping just over 4000 words. I hope this has been enlightening for all you readers out there, perhaps you now have a better understanding of how I came to be personality/interest-wise, and I hope you can catch a glimpse of that same importance these pieces of media have in regard to me and my values.

[dollofdeath]

Military Men -- A Rewatch of JG Ep 1

Originally for this Joker Game rewatch, I was going to just redraw scenes I liked because I thought I didn’t have anything to add meta-wise or analytical-wise. But as I was reading JGfiles’ rewatch (which is super interesting! Do read it if you have the chance), I remembered the one thing that always stood out to me -- and it’s not necessarily confined to this episode -- is the dynamic between Sakuma and Odagiri. I don’t think it’s quite strong enough to call “parallelism,” but I think there’s something intriguing about having Sakuma, a soldier overseeing the spies, within the same space as Odagiri, a former soldier turned spy.

A bit of a disclaimer here but I’m not too well versed in regards to the historical context of the setting which may lead to shortcomings in my analysis. Anyways, without further ado, here I go! (•̀ᴗ•́)و

Right from the beginning, we know that Sakuma isn’t like the spies at all. Unlike them, he’s a trained soldier -- taught to follow Imperial ideologies with unwavering belief. As portrayed through his dynamic with Miyoshi, his beliefs clash with the spies’ and lead to the predicament Sakuma finds himself in later in the episode. One would think that these men have no common ground with Sakuma, that there’s no understanding between him and them. But as learned from the character biographies, Odagiri was once part of the military. Already, this sets Odagiri apart from the other spies and draws a similarity to Sakuma.

If the spies are considered anomalies of society, Odagiri can be considered an anomaly of an anomaly. While he’s an independent thinker honed by his spy training, he isn’t quite inhuman as the other spies are (as shown in episode 12). I’m probably treading on headcanon territory here, but I think that he’s a bit more sympathetic to Sakuma due to this.

Let’s start with the first (and only) scene Sakuma and Odagiri interact, which is the Joker Game -- or the poker game as Sakuma is initially led to believe.

I love imagining everyone in D-Agency and Sakuma as one big happy family as much as everyone else does, but I’m sure the reality is that they toyed with Sakuma to amuse themselves (perhaps saying that they bullied him is a better way to phrase it) and the Joker Game was one way they did it. Even Odagiri is in on it, though I think he may feel a bit bad about it.

Because, after all, it’s Odagiri who tells Sakuma that his loss wasn’t due to the way he played, but the way he and the others worked against him.

I believe it was never the spies’ intention to let Sakuma know about the Joker Game. Maybe they wanted him to figure it out himself, maybe they just wanted to be dicks towards him, maybe some kind of mix of the two. Regardless of the reasoning, I think Odagiri telling Sakuma about the Joker Game was something he did out of his own volition and was never part of the plan. Sakuma was about to leave and it felt like a last minute choice to tell him. And maybe it’s just the way the shot is angled combined with Odagiri’s typically stoic expression, but he almost (just almost) looks concerned. 

And to me, it seemed that the other spies were... annoyed about having to explain things to Sakuma and don’t even take him that seriously, treating him like he’s some sort of dense child.

(miyoshi’s face screams “oh my god this dumbass” while hatano is judging sakuma lololol)

(kaminaga and amari: lmao ok bye)

So back to the point: what did Odagiri have to gain from telling Sakuma about the Joker Game besides advancing the plot? Nothing really. Had he not done that, the status quo would’ve remained and Sakuma would’ve gone back to bed in ignorance. But perhaps he wanted an easier conscience and maybe in a roundabout way, he wanted Sakuma to learn a lesson he needed. 

As an aside, something I find interesting is that when Yuuki is talking about how the spies will live in solitude doing their jobs, we’re given shots of all the spies. Odagiri is the only one by himself, which I suppose can symbolize him not being like the others. Not only that, but the way that he’s seated is different.

Odagiri is facing towards the spies, away from Yuuki as Sakuma was just a few moments ago from this particular shot. In fact, in this shot, he’s the only one facing completely towards the audience (Amari is kinda too but like he can still easily look at Yuuki and Sakuma) and I wish I had some deep analysis to give you guys about this, but all I can come up with is “yeah, he’s different” haha yeah orz. Or maybe none of these don’t mean anything at all lol they were just something that caught my attention.

Anyhow, from thereon, Odagiri’s interactions with Sakuma are more indirect, if not nonexistent (which is a shame, but I digress).

The next time Sakuma and Odagiri are together is during the search of John Gordon’s house. While there’s no interaction between them, we see that Odagiri is standing directly behind Sakuma. It might not mean much overall, but this just really strikes me. They could’ve chosen literally anyone else to be behind Sakuma and they went with Odagiri. I’m not quite sure how to put my thoughts about this except that I think it’s rather poetic how the former soldier is standing behind the military man (literally and possibly figuratively).

(Presenting my super crappy editing skills haha anyways)

The next interaction isn’t much of an interaction, but more of how Odagiri reacts to Sakuma as opposed to the other spies. As Sakuma faces the prospect of actually committing harakiri, we get a very quick pan of all the spies sans Miyoshi. The fact that this shot happens so quickly gives us the impression that every single one of the spies is smirking at Sakuma, mocking him and his beliefs that lead him up to this point, which is probably how Sakuma himself feels no doubt. 

However, if one looks closer, Odagiri has a different reaction than the others.

It’s rather difficult to see this on tumblr so here’s a link to the bigger picture. Since we’re focusing on Odagiri, I’ll just share the closeup on him.

I won’t say that he definitely isn’t smirking because I think it can be argued that he is in his own way given his stoic nature. But the point is that the other spies have a pronounced smirk, whereas Odagiri’s lips are closer to a flat line like he’s not as amused at this spectacle as the others are. Even Fukumoto, who is also portrayed as serious, has a more noticeable smirk than Odagiri.

Just to further illustrate my point because the more I look at this screencap the more I feel like I’m deluding myself into seeing a smirk, I placed a straight line across each of the spies’ mouths from corner to corner. Odagiri’s lips resemble -- if not perfectly fit -- the line while the other spies have a noticeable curve.

Here’s a link to the bigger picture and here’s a closeup of Odagiri:

this is probably the most extra thing i’ve ever done i apologize

Perhaps this doesn’t mean much as well, but I think it’s Odagiri’s sympathy towards Sakuma showing up once more. Due to the circumstances of the situation, he can’t do anything to stop Sakuma without raising suspicions (not only from Gordon, but his fellow spies as well). All that he can do now is watch as Sakuma tries to find a way out of this situation or die trying. Unlike the others, he doesn’t seem too interested in seeing the latter play out.

And that... is about it -- for both episodes 1 and 2. I don’t think we ever see Odagiri and Sakuma interact ever again after this (which is unfortunate, but alas).

Admittedly, this is a one-sided dynamic given the little interaction that they have and when they do it's Odagiri towards Sakuma and never vice versa. It's probably due to story reasons as there wouldn't be much conflict if the focus was on Odagiri and Sakuma as opposed to Miyoshi and Sakuma and that's fair. As much as I wish Sakuma and Odagiri’s dynamic was explored more, I appreciate subtle relationships like this and know they have their place within the story and for what it is, I think it plays its role well. 

To conclude, I guess I’ll just throw my bits of headcanon. I can see Odagiri keeping his distance from Sakuma as a way to distance himself from his past (which we'll see doesn't work out for him in episode 12) but he allows himself moments of sympathy to support Sakuma in a way. He understands where Sakuma is coming from, so he’s easier on him than the others are. Of course, maybe things really Aren’t That Deep and I care too much about fictional characters, but ah well hehe

(Also if anyone is interested, I wrote a fic some time ago exploring some of the events of episodes 1 and 2 through Odagiri’s perspective, focusing on his thoughts on Sakuma (basically this analysis in fic form haha). You can find it here! ehehe shameless advertising)

Thank you guys for taking the time to read all this!! And thank you JGfiles for giving me the opportunity to put all of my thoughts about this into one coherent post hehe╰(*´︶`*)╯