#Pulls up with me and my 26 different art styles

[mrsreinhart]

Lili Reinhart - Grazia Italia Interview

In the cult TV series Riverdale we met her as an always fearless heroine, often forced to confront others and with herself. But even in real life American actress Lili Reinhart, 26, has often found herself having to look within to overcome difficulties.

At 14, when she was already determined to pursue a career in acting, she was diagnosed with a form of depression. Very young, she went through anxiety attacks and various kinds of difficulties, not least that body dysmorphic disorder that leads her to see herself differently from others and to suffer from some physical characteristics that she perceives in a distorted way.

Reinhart has therefore become the champion of the battles for mental health and for the acceptance of different types of beauty. She didn't hesitate to expose herself even to a global celebrity like the queen of social networks Kim Kardashian: the actress found that losing so much weight and in a short time to get into a dress that belonged to Marilyn Monroe was not a good example for her women who have difficulty accepting their body.

At the Women in Film Gala 2022, Lili then received the Max Mara Face of the Future award, dedicated to emerging actresses. «My family», declared Maria Giulia Prezioso Maramotti, «has built a company that honors and celebrates women, above all in the arts. We wanted to award the prize to a young artist who embodies our values, but who is still evolving. What Lili is going in is an excellent direction to follow.

I meet Reinhart in Los Angeles, while she's curled up in the make-up artist's chair for Grazia's fashion shoot that you see in these pages. She remains seated for a long time with her legs pulled up to her chest, a position that evokes the tenderness of a little girl. But she talks to me about serious topics and does it with honesty and depth, even when it comes to revealing the most intimate aspects of her life. She became a global celebrity thanks to the character of Betty Cooper in the TV series Riverdale, which reached its seventh season.

Do vou ever think that the success of this role has somehow slowed down your career as an actress?

I am grateful to Riverdale for everything it has brought me. If I'm sitting here with her now, it's because of the success of the show. But at some point in life, it's time to move on."

Do you feel that you have something to prove to others or to yourself?

I've been acting since I was 12, l've come a long way since then, but I think I haven't yet fulfilled my potential. And this is a challenge for myself. I want the actors who inspire me to talk about me, I want to go far and deserve it. For the past seven years, I've been doing a teen show, Riverdale, with a style that isn't necessarily. what i prefer. But Riverdale it has been incredibly successful and takes up practically all my time, so it has been difficult for me to seize other opportunities

Have you had to make many job cuts?

Last spring I was offered a role that I wanted to play with all my heart, but unfortunately the dates did not reconcile with the filming of the show. It was devastating to say no.

What was she like as a child? Did you imagine that when you grew up?

| was an introvert, I lived in my own little world and I always felt a bit isolated. I think I have an old soul, with my peers I felt like a fish out of water and I didn't quite understand which was the right place for me. Just yesterday I was talking to my mother about when I enjoyed dressing up as a child. We had a box full of costumes we'd collected over the years, I even changed three times a day. I put on plays and plays for my family, I always wanted to perform. So, in the end, I moved on to the theater up to television and cinema.

Was performing a way of expressing yourself?

Some people are naturally outgoing, funny. I felt I could only be by performing. I was very insecure and acting gave me the opportunity to explore sides of my personality that I would not have known otherwise.

And i also brought out a very intimate and vulnerable side by writing a book of poems, Swimming Lessons: Poems ("Swimming lessons: poems").

Yes, it was a time in my life when I felt like I wanted to. to do something that came exclusively from me and over which I had total creative control. I was very nervous at first, because it was a bit like sharing a diary with people who were ready to judge it and judge me. As an actress I feel safe, as a writer I don't: hence the negative comments on mine. book strengthened my fears. I know that no one would have paid attention to my poems if Lili the actress hadn't signed them, but I never had the claim. to establish myself as a writer. I'm a romantic and I just wanted to share a different side of me.

Don't you think maybe you're too hard on yourself?

I internalize a lot, especially the criticisms. After all, poetry is the way I express my emotions. What I wanted to convey was not, "Look at me, I'm a writer." | wanted to tell the people who follow me that I am an absolutely normal human being: I have feelings, insecurities, I struggle and face life's challenges just like anyone else.

She has often spoken about her insecurities, especially physical ones, and is a spokesperson for the "body positivity" for the acceptance of all physicalities. Do you remember the first time dysmorphia, a disorder you suffer from,presented itself?

I have an average build and, when I began to get to know the world of fashion and clothes better, I met models with very different physiques from mine. There have been times when the clothes they offered just didn't fit me. So I said to myself: "Why don't I have a smaller physique?". When a dress designed for someone two sizes smaller than you doesn't fit, you start to think you're wrong and you have to do something to fit the clothes. But in a young woman these thoughts can hurt a lot.

I recently Today, however, she sees her photos everywhere. What does it feel? She likes herself?

I talked about this with my therapist. In fact, I feel like i live in a sort of perpetual comparison with other, more glamorous versions of myself. I started acting as a child and learned that my body is always changing. Today I accept myself more and judge myself less, however Hollywood doesn't want you to get old and puts pressure on you for it. Don't you think it's crazy that at 26 | worry about not having the same face as when I was 19? Of course I don't have it! Even the one in these photos is certainly a more beautiful version of me: I'm not like this every day. Constantly having to show a better image of ourselves can play tricks on us, because it can make us believe that our everyday version is not enough.

And how does she find a way to get everyone along these versions of itself?

I can't, they don't get along. There is my everyday self that reminds Lili of the glamor that looks like this only if she is surrounded by professionals who they make up and comb her hair. But I'm making peace with the fact that first I have to learn to be okay with each version of me. For example, I now have an acne breakout. Who sees them? Acne has always triggered severe mental and emotional distress in me. It makes me feel bad and makes it difficult for me to appear in public or take pictures without makeup because I know my skin would otherwise look different than everyone expects. Instead I should think that a rash doesn't take anything away from me, it doesn't define me. It's always me. Unfortunately it's a constant struggle: I live in a world that demands perfection and, at times, I think I've begun to demand it too. But then I think that everything happens for a reason and maybe the reason why acne always shows up on my face is because I have to learn to love every season my skin and my body go through because that's right. I'm a human being, not a mannequin.

I couldn't help but notice the tattoo on her right forearm: an arrow.

I did it around 18, 19. It represents my battle against depression: an arrow can only go forward if it is first pulled back. It's like saying that, once you hit rock bottom, you can only go back up.

In which direction is it pointing then?

Forward, always. My mental health has its ups and downs and this arrow reminds me that I always manage to get out of it, because I'm a tireless fighter.

But, during this fight, I hope she takes moments to appreciate what she has achieved.

I appreciate my battles, it is thanks to them that I am such a strong person. I wouldn't change anything about me. Having had the experience of depression leads me to experience moments of joy more intensely and makes me establish healthier and deeper relationships. The moments of discouragement have taught me so much about myself and it is right that I experience them and face them when they arise, rather than trying to escape.

She was cast as the Max Mara Face of the Future. How does this recognition make you feel?

It's a complicated feeling to explain. It's hard for me to accept that people see me this way. I almost feel like I have imposter syndrome, because I don't think I've shown my worth as an actress yet. I have exposed myself as an activist for body positivity and mental health, but in my work I think I haven't given my best yet. I'm waiting for that opportunity, which is on the horizon, but l'm waiting. So to receive the award before I've even been able to demonstrate what I think I can do as an actress is very encouraging. And I'm grateful because this recognition makes me understand that l'm already doing something good.

-Credit to lililovebots on Twitter for posting the interview.

[m2kdj-waist-connoisseur]

One thing I love so much about orv is the writing style. SS has such a beautiful writing style that I get absorbed into orv whenever I open my kindle.

Orv doesn't have a single meaning, the scenes we interpret do not have a single interpretation and I love that. Different aspects have different interpretations and I believe that’s really beautiful for a book to have different interpretations and invoke thought.

Sometimes I’ll sit and think about a scene in orv and come up with my own interpretation, how it made me feel then open twitter and see someone with something different and it makes me think more. I read the thread wanting to know why they think like that? What did you see that I didn’t? And seeing different opinions (the good ones, not the hateful ones some assholes drop) make me really happy. Maybe it’s cause my brain can’t rest and refuses to stop at my interpretation but I have to say SS really made a piece of art!

Orv would make literature teachers cry cause it can be interpreted in so many ways (gone with ‘the curtain is blue as a symbol of sadness’).

Another good thing about Orv having such an open to interpretation style is that spoilers don’t pull me off. I haven’t finished it but can talk about it for a more than reasonable length (Apologies to my younger brother as I spent well over an hour explaining why kdj and yjh are life and death companions last week) because I’ve seen so many takes and opinions on twitter.

Hell twitter was the final push that made me pick it up (shoutout toapollo their jd sleeping beauty au led me down the orv rabbit hole). Seeing the ‘spoilers’ on twitter piqued my curiosity and made me search for a way to read orv and here I am on tumblr.

I wanted to know why are jd known as ‘life and death companions’? Why does 49% and 51% trigger people? Why is my tl filled with kdj’s 24 inch waist? (I believe his waist is AT MOST 26 inches) With so many whys, threads explaining shit after I liked ONE AU I picked it up for myself and I can say starting Orv is the best and worst thing I’ve ever done to myself.

I can confidently say orv is indeed the bane of my existence and the object of my desires (head in hands begging for an official English translation so I can buy it ) Orv didn’t pull me out of a reading slump, it put me in multiple but they’re the most pleasant slumps I’ve had cause I don’t want to finish reading it but I also can’t wait to finish it so I’ve decided to stall my suffering and take it at an extremely slow pace.

This feels like a diary rn

I feel like I’ve said a lot without really saying anything but meh so is life ig (damn Shakespeare got nothing on me)

I almost forgot!

The topic of interpretation comes from lsk encouraging kdj’s love for books! Lsk encouraged kdj to reread books when he’s done because there’s always more to it than what you saw in the first read. He could reread a book and focus on someone else’s pov and get an entirely new story from something so simple :) I’m not a fan of rereading books (I’ve tried and just can’t so it’s one of the reasons I stick to ebooks cause I don’t have to worry about getting rid of books I’ll no longer read ( ◠‿◠ ) )

Orv might have been about that one reader’s pov (sobs) but it sure made me think of things from others’ pov! It took being empathetic to another level and made me want to understand these characters and not just understand their love for that rat bastard {affectionate}.

I wanted to understand why these people kept going when it looked like all was lost. They’re living in an apocalypse for goodness sake and they’re still trying to survive??? I’d look for the quickest and least painful way to end it all cause I wouldn’t see a way out and even if I did see one who says I’d struggle to get it?? Do they keep moving just to survive? Why do they struggle when a peaceful death sounds appealing? (if it’s not obvious I’m a weak ass bitch and can’t imagine facing a scenario )

There’s something in them that makes them move even before they met kdj. Maybe it’s the fear of death? Maybe it’s hope? Maybe it’s the desire to live even when it seems impossible? Maybe it’s something I haven’t thought of?? Who knows?? (SS probably but this ain’t about them :) )

JD HAS DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS AS WELL

There are people that ship jd and see romantic intentions behind their actions (they’re married your honour) and there are people that have chosen to interpret these actions as outstanding companionship (history will say they were best friends) and that’s fine!

To my knowledge, SS hasn’t confirmed anything but best believe jd is married with biyoo as their daughter and living together with a nice house in the suburbs free from all scenarios and just enjoying domestic married life to me. Jd has caused so much commotion in the fandom that it’s funny. Like damn it’s not my fault I see two married men (life and death companions is a wedding vow???!) and other people see besto friendos ٩( ᐛ )و

*puts rose tinted shades on* all in all I need to hold kdj’s waist and will not know peace until then

Anyway! Let me stop here I need to eat something and if I keep brainstorming I’m gonna cry ϵ( 'Θ' )϶

[weebsinstash]

Consider reading Steel Under Silk and The Ghost's Nocturne. Both are BL manhwa. Both are kinda similar to Painter of the Night (on the pairing being a Huge Strong Guy With Issues and a Massive Dick X Petite Man) and yet completeley different. Both have noncon. Both are available on bato. to! Steel Under Silk is legit so good, I dont even wanna pitch it to you. The ML is *MWHAH* chefs kiss. You just have to read it and see for yourself. The art style on both are TOP TIER.

Man so like I was kind of indulging in this conversation with someone else earlier but, you know how there was like that cultural movement in like the 2000s onward where a lot of young women were uncritically consuming yaoi content and yeah there were definitely a lot of people being homophobic and fetishistic about it (legit I think the whole "yaoi is fine but yuri is gross" that was common for a lot of young girls was just internalized misogyny bc I was one of those kids and now I'm literally a queer person with a gender identity of Girl But Also Who Gives a Fuck) but like at the core of it it was younger folks being completely unbothered by queer media and even seeking it out, and then there was this reverse whiplash of "oh no only gay men can read these, if you read these you are gross/homophobic/racist" and it's like. I literally turned 26 the other week and even sometimes when im in YouTube shorts watching manhwa clips (believe it or not this can actually be a really good way to find more stories, some people make very high quality edits or clip and the algorithm will just eventually feed you manhwa shit nonstop) and whenever a BL story comes up, there's like, a sense of shame in my heart, like I gotta look away? "Like oh, better avoid that, consuming this media with gay men in it surely makes me fetishistic and creepy" and it's like, the queer community has not clawed its way to having some rights for us to pull this kinds inter-group othering like this 🤦‍♀️ im a fucking adult and im going to read these stories where dudes are gonna fuck and it doesn't mean a damn thing besides me wanting to see people getting Freak Nasty

But anyways yeah I will definitely add those to my recommended 👀 I think one thing I've been having to watch out for is that I will see a series and then I'll read the comments and it might be something like "dont read this, its extremely unhappy, the mc suffers constantly and the ending is sad" and its like. Yeah I like dark content but I have to be careful when it comes to stories that are kind of just straight up tragedy porn? Idk. Like. When I write dark content its kind of contained into like a one-shot or a story with a few chapters, it isn't extremely drawn out to the extent ive seen with a lot of manhwa. I had my eyes on "Broken Promise: Married Man" or whatever the fuck its called bwcause it looked like it had some kinky stuff in it and then I look into it a little and almost everyone was saying "oh no dude don't read this unless you have a strong heart, bad shit CONSTANTLY happens, this man SUFFERS"

Idk its just, sometimes it can be hard to find my personal limits with that kind of thing 🥺 I don't think I've ever dropped anything for messing me up or anything but there are times I've read fanfictions and it made me like depressed the whole day 😅 the hunt for good stories constantly continues!

Also. It isn't a BL but ive heard Finding Camelia is good? It's a manhwa about a girl who is forced to live as a boy because she's the only heir to her family or something and she has to go through a journey of self growth and learn to feel good as herself and a girl again? I dunno, i don't know many details about it but ive seen a lot of people recommend it. Honestly I'm trying not to start too many stories at once but like I can't stop, I find a good story, start reading, oh wait it isn't complete, better find a another story, oh wait it isn't complete, wash rinse repeat ykwim

[anosci]

(1-15 albums etc that I've listened to this year, copied from twitter) (now with art.) (media version) Jan [1] Feb [2] [3] Mar [4] [5] [6] Apr [7] [8] May [9] [10] [11] Jun [12] [13] [14] Jul [15] Aug [16] [17] [18] [19] Sep [20] [21] [22] Oct [23] [24] Nov [25] [26] Dec [27] [28]

names and thoughts below cut

1/ Ken Ishii - Flatspin (2000) this dude has a really lovely synth style that feels just right every time.

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2/ (every Dream Wave Project release from 2001) golly, I don't like trance, especially from around the turn of the century! anyway I wonder if this y2k trance netlabel will have anything good. (<- clueless) somehow there were a few bangers tho. Link-D innerflux? top notch.

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3/ DJ Technorch & 九十九音夢 – Strong Anthropic Principle (2016) holy shit tracks 1 and 3 immediately jumped into my fav of all time list EZ. the m1dy remix is ace too but wow tough competition.

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4/ maj7jam - cover ring III (2023) wall to wall slappers. (I'm on here too!) its a variety thing so i cant rly summarize it but... big favs: "Dear Siren" "dissociate for frogs" "blank disquette" how did a remix of my tune turn into the funkiest thing here? hot damn

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5/ かたぎり – かたぎりは電気狐の夢を見るか？ (2021) feels like its been a while since ive chewed on some breakcore. this one's delicious. I love that rapidly changing textural stuff. "Code Name: Romeo" and "Stray Cat Syndrome". is there a name for that technique? good stuff

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6/ Nav Katze - Never Mind The Distortion (1996) ive been thinking about checking out the original albums that afx's "26 mixes for cash" were pulled from. idk if i'll continue the trend, but this one was well worth the listen. lovely late-era bleep sound all around

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7/ Paradigm Shift - Paradigm Shift (1995) from a rabbit hole of recommendations: "it's good i promise". and yep. it's GOOD. slightly chilled chemical breaks. considering the date and long-lasting freshness I'm kinda surprised this isn't more highly acclaimed.

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8/ Faith Massive - Drum & Bass for the Masses (1998) more from the rabbit hole. I have a soft spot for mid-to-late 90s liquid dnb, and this hits that spot for me. the synths in "Downtreader" especially.

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9/ Todd Edwards - Full On, Vol. 1 (2001) endless high quality chops. it's one of those styles that still sounds futuristic in a way.

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10/ Orbital - The Altogether (2001) i wonder why i skipped this when i was digging through orbital's stuff. (listens) oh. because it doesn't click with me. [some of] the remixes on the associated singles are a bit better tho.

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11/ DJ Krush - Reload (The Remix Collection) (2001) kinda a mixed bag, which is to be expected for a collection (of remixes) "Maiden Voyage" hits just right tho

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12/ Capitol K - Notes From Life On The Wire With A Wrecking Ball (2008) i love Capitol K's soundscapes but I'm very particular about vocals. these vocals DO NOT vibe with me :( there are a few instrumental tracks, luckily for me

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13/ Wevie Stonder - Drawing On Other People's Heads (2001) feels like a turntablism thing but... drum machine? akai? idk. a little different. i do kinda think the vocal samples are excessive, but not enough to throw out the entire album yknow?

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14/ Hol Bauman - Human (2008) surprisingly haunting.

--- February ---

15/ VA - We Are Friends, Vol. 11 (2023) this year, im planning to [try 2] keep up with new releases from artists/labels i like. this is the first one that really hit me tho. which is cool bc mau5trap is... usually so-so imo. highlights: "Another Day", "I Like Math", "11:11"

---

[here2bbtstrash]

2! 7! 14! 22! 26! 35! 41! 50! 63 [LDOMLK]! 72! 74! 77! / I'M SORRY 😭😭😭

these are GOOD questions 🫠🤠

OMG SARAH!!!! STICKING MOST OF THIS UNDER A READ MORE... YOU DEMON...... (thank you and i love you 😭😭)

2. Where do you get your fic ideas?

legit anywhere, everywhere. sometimes in movies or tv shows, sometimes from songs, sometimes from random shit i see on the internet, sometimes from my personal life 🤭 and sometimes my brain just goes "hey wouldn't it be wild if X" so like i have to assume those come straight from god lmaooooo

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

one day i'll finish park and ride 3..... but for now i'll give you the intro ~under the cut~ 👀

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in?

in my mf bed lmaooooo or on my couch. i'll write basically laying down with my laptop on my stomach bc anything else makes my back hurt because i'm NEARLY 30 👹

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process?  How do you come up with titles?

this can happen anywhere along the line. sometimes i'll steal the title from a song, either one that inspired the fic ("party on you" comes from charli xcx's party 4 u, "heartless" comes from the kanye west song) or didn't but the specific song line feels correct ("the shape of your body" comes from taylor swift's cruel summer, which.... does not fit the plot at all but i thought it worked well for the themes of bodies/art). sometimes the title comes first and i build the fic around that theme ("babygirl"). sometimes i finish a whole fic and i'm like what the fuck do i call this and i pick something that feels obvious and fits with the story ("park and ride", "two in one").

26. What’s your least favorite part of the writing process?

the first draft 💀 i LOVE outlining, and i LOVE polishing/detail editing stuff once i have a first pass written, but getting that first pass out.... it's like pulling fucking teeth. every time. like do i even like writing 🤣

35. What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CHOOSE A FAVORITE 🔪 i love all my children for different reasons.... we'll go with the shape of your body for now just because i really didn't know if i could write something like that, it was such an undertaking, and i've reread it in bits and pieces multiple times because it's so comforting to me 🥰

41. Who’s your favorite character you’ve written?

i have an insaaaaaane soft spot for fratboy jk from the spins. i wanna write something else with him SO BAD. i wanna give him a motorcycle 😩

50. How would you describe your writing style?

ashdfjkadf this is hard !!! i strive for realistic, character-driven, humorous, thoughtful, accessible, poetic, honest, and horny. so hopefully.... some mix of those 🤣

63. What was the hardest part of writing [LDOMLT]?

heavy emotional bits aside...... it's probably going to be writing the fucking grammys like i have any idea what the fuck goes on there LMAO 💀 gonna need to watch some youtube videos for research

72. What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten?

anytime i get compliments on queer aspects of my stories and specifically hear that it resonated with someone or allowed them to better understand/embrace a party of their identity, i just.... fucking melt 🫠 i've heard that several times with the shape of your body and it kills me every single time. it is the highest honor of my life 🙇‍♀️

74. Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

babygirl lmao!!!!! justice for jk with his butterfly clips 😭 but i get it that one is uhhhh. deeply self-indulgent

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

so many reasons! i love to connect with people. i love to capture my thoughts on the world and the human condition and how we interact with and treat each other. i love to make myself and others feel less alone and more seen. i love to manifest the shit i'm trying to find in my own life 😩 and of course i love to pay my own little horny artistic tribute to OT7 given that their art has done soooo much for me!!! 💜

stuck in the airport ask game party: fanfic writing asks

[matthewshaffer]

Creative Ethnography Identity from Matthew Shaffer on Vimeo.

Creative ethnography exploring gender, identity, and agency during my first year of graduate school at Wilson College 2021. For educational purposes only.

“Moving Pictures”

Introduction: I spent the better part of my childhood and adolescence struggling to find a place among my peers; I was uninterested in the activities and conversations that held their attention, and turned instead to finding myself in the characters I was enamored with on screen and stage. These larger-than-life representations provided a layered, complicated, authentic development, which resonated with me deeply. 
My idea to explore the Los Angeles film community was born out of a lecture in Praxis––Movement Arts exploring narrative and ritual; specifically how the interplay between ritual and performance creates a support structure that captures an audience. As we watched the work of Martha Graham’s, Appalachian Spring (1944), I was intrigue with how precise she was in introducing clear characters and conflict in her story development. For my creative ethnography, I decided to examine the commonalities which exist within a small, likeminded, but incredibly diverse group of Los Angeles film connoisseurs. My question, does our gender and socioeconomic background impact the way we perceive movies? While reading Victor Turner’s, "The Anthropology of Performance", my interest was peaked when he suggested, “One may perhaps distinguish between secret and public liminality, between performative genres that are secluded from the gaze of the mass and those that involve their participation not only as audience but also as actors––taking place, moreover, in the squares of the city, the heart of the village, not away in the bush, hidden in a cave, or secreted in a catacomb or cellar. (1987; p. 26). Here I am in Los Angeles, CA. A city that largely hides in cars, sitting in traffic, slowly dancing down freeways that lead us to offices, appointments, and social engagements. Turner’s concept sparked a curiosity; most of the people that share my love of obscure 35mm film––the kind that play at The New Beverly Cinema–-have a colorful personality and curated style they share publicly; but we all arrive from different directions of a diversified and vast region. During a lecture on place and narrative, multi-media artist, Mariam Ghani shares, “Narratives exist in places where there are conflicts; shifting public and private narratives mirror the things that contest truth; versions of the same stories; how does the public respond, how do families respond in private?” These two ideas, encouraged me to begin my field work at The New Beverly Cinema. I committed to attending two films a week, on Tuesday and Friday evenings, and discovered quickly that the group of attendees was usually a cluster of the same people. I arrived early to watch as movie lovers from different directions would pull up, some in luxury vehicles, many in economy hybrid vehicles; most dressed in, what I would soon discover, was a “costume” of sorts. I learned that people liked dressing for the part of the movie goer. Some wore themed content that might tie into the film that we were going to watch. 
 The first three weeks, I watched, took notes, and eventually decided on several people who always stood out from the crowd. Once I established who I was going to study, I arrived at how I might approach the work. Because we were in a theater, and would spend the majority of our time in the dark watching a screen, I decided to use my smartphone to capture the exchanges and interactions with like mind film aficionados. From there, I thought it would be interesting to incorporate a backstory using the intricate web of freeways we have in Los Angeles, to represent the far reaching impact that the film has on people, and the lengths that they will go to feel one with that community.

References Bogart, A. (2014). What’s the story: Essays about art, theater and storytelling. p. 139; Routledge

Turner, V. (1987). The anthropology of performance. p. 26; PAJ Publications

[tonkiroulette]

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That’s something we always have our eyes on a bit. That’s when it hit that viral critical mass.

#IMANGI STUDIOS TEMPLE RUN 3 FREE#

We had a great launch and it was doing well, but it wasn’t until we made it free that it really took off. It was 99 cents, and it had in-app purchases. To give an example, when we originally launched Temple Run, it was paid. Business models are always shifting and creating different ways to monetize. Shepherd: It’s one of those things that evolves. GamesBeat: Playing the game, it seemed to me that the most obvious way this would make money would be through ads. The structure is pretty similar as far as the actual monetization. There are in-app purchases that you make to buy coins in addition to earning them. We monetize through a lot of different ways. Shepherd: Temple Run and Temple Run 2 are set up pretty similarly as far as monetization. GamesBeat: What’s your best means of monetization? Did that change from Temple Run to Temple Run 2? And then as we expanded our different maps – we have a map based in South America, one in Siberia, one in the Middle East and one in the jungles of Asia – we have real characters from those areas, so people all around the world can have a character that they feel represents them.Join gaming leaders live this October 25-26 in San Francisco to examine the next big opportunities within the gaming industry. We have really strong women characters that are not video game characters, like scantily dressed in bikinis and that kind of thing, but real adventurers with real gear. We really strove to create a diverse player group and a cast of runners. So that’s been really cool – they help us with new maps and things we’ll be doing in the future. They tell us what they want, and we listen to them. We’re always trying to make improvements, and a lot of that comes from requests from the fans.ĭevins: We have a group called the super fan group. As we continue to extend Temple Run, over the years we’ve tried to draw inspiration from all that and bring it into the game, but kind of put our own twist on it by combining things or bringing them together. Shepherd: There’s so much inspiration we can pull from, from different cultures and places around the world. My sister used to call it “Swishy McSwipey”, but we were like, “OK, people actually like this.” Temple Run was definitely the thing where people got into it right away and didn’t want to give your phone back. If people are stumbling around at first, that tells you a lot. Luckyanova: You’ve got to test your games on people too – just hand it to somebody with no explanation and see what they do with it. That's partly because of our philosophy – we just don’t like guns and violence. First, it has to possibly exist on Earth, and we have no guns or modern technology. Walter Devins, CEO, Imangi Studios: We have the ten commandments of the Temple Run world. It had to look like they were scary enough that you couldn't just turn around and fight them – you really were running for your life and being terrified. So we just let him sort of run wild with creating a scary monster that's going to be chasing you. Kiril has such a vivid imagination, and his art style always lends itself very well to those dark, mysterious and kind of creepy creatures. Shepherd: We call them demon monkeys they’ve got these skull-like faces and glowing eyes. That's basically where Temple Run came from. After that, we specifically set out thinking about how can we make it simple and straightforward.

#IMANGI STUDIOS TEMPLE RUN 3 HOW TO#

It was very complex, and most people didn’t get how to play it. It was a dual stick shooter, so you had to control where he was walking and control where he was shooting at the same time. Luckyanova: Our previous game was about a little kid defending his little suburban world from alien invasion. That game was not a success at all – nobody's heard of it – but we made about ten games before Temple Run came out. It was there the very first day the App Store opened. Keith Shepherd, co-creator, Imangi Studios: The first thing we made was a little word puzzle we called Imangi. He’s always really been into making games too, but that was always just a side thing. When the iPhone came out, he was first in line to get it. Keith has always been a big Apple fan, and an early adopter.

#IMANGI STUDIOS TEMPLE RUN 3 SOFTWARE#

Natalia Luckyanova, co-creator, Imangi Studios: We actually met working in a software company that made software for hospitals and stuff like that, and we were looking to do something a little more creative and independent.

[kidheart]

26 years ago Disney's Mighty Ducks the Animated Series premiered. 26 years ago I was a kid just about to enter 2nd grade and turn 8 years old later that same month. On a whim, my mother told me to check out the shows that Disney was showcasing that night. That's all it took. That first time was all I needed to become very intrigued and drawn in by the story that had begun to play out before me. I was the right age to dive into a sci-fi adventure. This show, it's characters, they sparked so much. This was the thing to inspire my already imaginative mind to think up my own adventures, to draw, and to write. It was a building block that helped form an important piece of me. 

I don't just celebrate the show on its own today. I celebrate what this show came with as well; moments spent with my very involved and encouraging parents, a time before the hardships that befell my family, a time where I was about to become an older sister, the community I would find myself becoming more and more apart of, a way to develop my art style in drawing and writing, and everything else that was this show to me. It all comes back to me when I look over this time. No, a lot of people didn't get it, and that's okay. The team means a lot to me because of all of this and more. Each character taught me something that has lasted through the years; accepting differences, giving people a chance, be yourself, that being an older sibling is about being protective and letting them grow at the same time, to not worry about gender specific things so you can enjoy things considered masculine or feminine or both, you can find friends where you least expect to, and that life may not turn out how you thought, but still enjoy it as it goes. I'd say those are all important lessons to carry with you. 

This picture reflects on all of that. It's from chapter 6 of my core story, Cultivating the Fire. It's after the 3rd episode of the show, and the Mighty Ducks are simply going on their first vacation. Duke and Heart are just starting as an official couple, and learning what that means. Heart is new to all of this, and Duke isn't used to being open with anyone anymore. The team as a whole are also still learning how to live together as well as adapting to their new home. Its an early chapter, but an important one. There's minor threats to deal with, such as urban legends in the woods... but it's just that, minor. The heart of the chapter is them being around one another from camping to a theme park. When I write for the team, a bit of myself goes into it. This chapter is no exception. Here they are, camping in the Migrator because a storm hit over their campsite. Just as it happened to my family in real life. Moments like that are what I call the bloodstream of my work, and their relationships are the heart that pulls everything together. 

So here they are, 26 years later, and they are as close as they ever were to me. 

[inotanzen]

hiii! i really admire your art skills. and the fact that you improved so much in just 6 months is inspiring! do you have any tips on how to improve? i'm 26 and i want to improve but i feel like ive neglected my art for so long and now it's too late. :(

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH OMG ?? oh man i’m so bad with feeling and gratitude but this seriously means more than i can express so i worked really, really hard on narrowing down my best tips! so here’s

Eli’s Top 5 Rules To Be a Totally Cool Awesome Badass Artist In As Long As It’s Going To Take (In Order) :

Most important rule of all is it should be FUN. be disgustingly self indulgent, draw what you want and LOVE, not what you think you should or what everyone else is, or how everyone else is! don’t vibe with doing sketches first? hate lining? despise complicated painting styles? find shortcuts, don’t do them!!! if you’re doing digital maybe draw your sketches traditionally first and scan them/take a photo to draw over, try a lineless style, cel shading, or mixing mediums, the options are endless! this is where your “style” will come from. all “style” is, is an artists shorthand.

You are your only competition. never compare your progress to anyone but your past self, it’s not a race in terms of how good you are at X age after X amount of time spent practicing. i saw it illustrated in this comic a few years ago (that made me cry at the time, because i hadn’t started drawing yet) as seeing your skills as a beautiful potted plant- just because some people are walking around with theirs fully grown and thriving, doesn’t mean your little sprout will stay small forever. just be patient, keep watering it, and eventually, it’ll be a beautiful flower all your own. ❀

Use references Obsessively. this includes tracing! (ethically) there’s a ton of resources out there, redraws of frames from movie or shows are great too! play around with it, try using the perspective but change the style or turn it into a character au for a fandom you love. (this is part of that first tip!) mashing together images past the point of original intelligibility is acceptable as well. the goal isn’t to obsess over accuracy or stop using references altogether though, just to use them differently over time.

Inspiration/motivation won’t be gone forever. don’t force yourself to practice drawing, or you’ll end up resenting it altogether. i’ve had my tablet and pencil since january but i say 6 months bc there were two (almost three) entire months where i had no inspiration and just did Nothing. take time to consume new media for ideas or look at what inspires you instead! keep folders of the things you find most appealing to pull up when you need them. art can be a freeing escape if you allow it to be!

Look at art you admire and think about Why you admire it. why does it look good, what catches your eye most? is it the colors? the lighting? the shapes and perspective? the varied line thicknesses or the overall layout composition? everything can be broken down into components, hone in on the ones you like most and try to emulate them. we’re all just flowing down the stream of shared inspiration together. :)

bonus digital art tip: you will always need more layers than you think you do. give each element its own layer like it’s the most introverted mf you’ve ever met, i swear on everything good in this cursed world you will thank me later. layer/item selection and transform are your best goddamn friends for life.

there’s also a lot of art related posts in this tag and on my art twitter ♡ thank you endlessly again and good luck on your journey!!

[agnesmontague]

I posted 6,054 times in 2021

567 posts created (9%)

5487 posts reblogged (91%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 9.7 posts.

I added 3,509 tags in 2021

#tma - 1603 posts

#rambles - 580 posts

#sailor moon - 240 posts

#food - 226 posts

#art - 192 posts

#vibes - 161 posts

#fashion - 159 posts

#animals - 134 posts

#deltarune - 109 posts

#fave - 105 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#me about to pursue an art history doctorate after i finish what i'm doing now and write a book of nonsense about how it all relates together

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

there’s something therapeutic about imagining a broadway-style curtain call at the end of magnus. tim and sasha appear from each side of the stage to wave at the audience, sasha holding not!sasha’s hand. elias and peter bow deeply in unison. michael and helen poke each other playfully with their long fingers and pop in and out of different doors before disappearing. gerry comes onstage in a flurry of papers and brings eric and mary with him. annabelle is lowered onto the stage from a hanging platform like a diva to thunderous applause. simon and mike crew hoot and wave at the audience from a high platform and pop away simultaneously when the spotlight turns off. nikola and jane swing each other in a wild dance that makes the stage shake. gertrude appears alone and does an elegant curtsey. daisy+basira and melanie+georgie appear together, arms linked, and all four do a bow together. finally, after everything has quieted down, jon and martin appear from either side, and as the curtain falls, they join hands.

3440 notes • Posted 2021-03-26 04:55:59 GMT

#4

i consider myself an expert in the field

3621 notes • Posted 2021-05-03 15:01:55 GMT

#3

anyone else bothered by the slow disappearance of websites for kids and the integration of children into sites meant for adults. as a kid i spent most of my time online on websites like girlsgogames, club penguin, barbie.com, moshi monsters, etc. etc. now 7 year olds just use tiktok. 

[op was a terf so i copied the post]

6710 notes • Posted 2021-12-06 17:58:06 GMT

#2

trans rights and lives will always be legitimate and worth fighting for so terfs die mad

[original post: you know what i think really slaps? the fact that every generation of teens online have grown up with personality quizzes. when i was a teen we had quizilla. before the rise of buzzfeed they were ubiquitous in magazines and a bunch of sites had flash personality quizzes that played like games. now we have uquiz. entire chunks of the internet might be getting phased out someday but on god we have our right to find out which fruit best represents our personality]

20565 notes • Posted 2021-11-01 00:26:03 GMT

#1

so i just learned that after disney+ debuted disney shut down a huge chunk of its tv channels around the world such as disney channel and disney XD including the ones in south korea, so for old times’ sake i just spent a good hour or so watching channel shutdown compilations and 90% of these worldwide disney channels just.... got absolutely no sendoff whatsoever. many of them got their plug pulled right in the middle of a show without even waiting for the episode to finish airing and there was no ending jingle or even a voiced-over announcement, only a sudden cut to a soulless monotone blank screen with “this channel is no longer available.” like the stuff of childhood nightmares 

you’d think a company with such a family-friendly image would take the time to at least explain briefly to its very young audience that all their fave shows will be moving to another service or something, hell, at least do it for advertisements’ sake so that kids can pester their parents into buying disney+, but disney does not care about you and it does not care about your children and it will absolutely snatch the last shred of comfort from a kid’s hands if it means they don’t have to spend an extra $400 recording an ending announcement in different languages

and honestly i am just sitting here with my heart in my throat like. none of our current art is truly permanent, is it. we like to think that we have better documentation and archiving technology than generations past but all it really takes is for one megacompany to slap some copyright tape over its comic book villain safe and then toss that safe in the ocean for all it’s worth. youtube could potentially choose to do the same and simply wipe its entire site clean overnight. adobe decided to throw flash in the garbage and decades worth of internet content just.... disappeared from reach. i am begging every digital creator out there to backup your content to as many outlets as you possibly can. use different cloud services that aren’t owned by one company. use physical usb drives and hard drives. if programs you used to open your work become obsolete at least document what it was so it can be passed on and remembered by people who want to. jesus christ i need a drink

35948 notes • Posted 2021-10-24 17:46:34 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #26

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

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Opera-phile

I had a hobby that I couldn’t tell anyone about. People like me were no rare breed.

Amongst the hobbies I had heard about from my friends until now, the one that made me think “this might be a bit hard to tell someone” the most was that keeping ice cream lids when they finished eating it. They said they would write down the date on each lid and store them in one of those clear files sold at 100-yen shops. They could only eat ice cream on special days when they were little, and they still couldn’t get over the habit of that time. The face of the person who had told me about this seemed simply satisfied in some way. Regardless, this may not have been something so difficult to say because it was revealed at a drinking party.

Now. Bringing the topic back to me.

If you were living alone in a foreign land called Sri Lanka, you could do whatever you wanted. I could get up at any time, eat whatever I felt like, study the things I enjoyed and go wherever I wanted with my Three-Wheeler. I didn’t have much, but the prices were cheap. My culinary repertoire was also noticeably increasing. Even if I danced alone in my room, no one would be watching. No, my dear dog ​​Jirou would stare at me with a bit of a strange look, but there were times when he’d eventually jump up and down and start dancing with me. Even if I listened to music at a loud volume, the same went for my neighbors.

Therefore, I was now thinking that maybe my stopper had come off a little.

I had bought the CD in Colombo, the real capital of Sri Lanka. As one would expect of the biggest shop in the country, they sold a lot of things that were unlikely to be available in Kandy.

The jacket featured a black-haired woman with a spellbound face, both of her arms outstretched. It was an opera CD with twelve songs.

I went back and forth in my room, shouting, “ah~, ah~”. What an opera was? No, I did know. It was traditional singing style – something like a musical, in which singers such as tenor, paritone, soprano and alto would perform along with a play. But something about them that diverged a bit from musicals was that the words used were old, the melodies weren’t excitable, and they were mainly either Italian or French, I believed.

I had no choice but admit it at this point. I liked opera.

Nakata Seigi had the words “I’m in love with opera” floating about in his head. I was driven by an urge to scream “gyaaah” and make said words disappear, but on the CD jacket, Maria Callas was making a spellbound face as usual, and that made me happy. I had purchased this CD after much hesitation over buying this or buying that. There was no way I wouldn’t be happy about it. Still...

Somewhere in my head, I recognized this as something embarrassing.

My dear boss was always telling me to think rationally at such times. He told me that whenever I thought my mind was moving in absurd ways, it always happened that there was some sort of timid development in me, which I either hadn’t noticed or, even if I did notice it, I’d ignore it – but once I understood it, it would stop being absurd.

Why would opera be embarrassing in the first place?

How I had come to like opera? The trigger was the radio. When I was staying at a hotel for a while back in Tokyo, I tended to feel down because I had nothing to do other than study, so I’d sometimes listen to the radio broadcast at the hotel while devoting myself to physics and English.

The singing voice I heard at that time was – how should I put it? – tremendously wonderful.

I couldn’t think that it was the voice of someone from the same world as myself. Someone was singing in a place just a few ways away, and as I listened to it, my body felt like my body was airily floating up – it was that kind of voice. I didn’t have any preferences for either male or female, and if anything, I liked both. The title of the song being streamed was written in the hotel’s guidebook, so I went to a video streaming site and searched for the same song by other singers and the songs that came before and after said piece. Faust. Madama Butterfly. Otello. Rigoletto. The Magic Flute. Don Giovanni. Whenever an opera song was used on a TV show, i became able to at least tell which prelude it was from.

And this passion hadn’t cooled down even now that some time had passed since then.

I walked around the room again, shouting, “Uuuh, uuuh”. Jirou energetically followed me from behind. It was almost as if he meant to say, “It’s fun to go a stroll even inside a room, huh, owner?”. Sorry but it’s not like I’m taking you on a walk, I thought, yet Jirou couldn’t care less, letting out a sweet voice as I held him up and rocked him, and then running off to the yard as if he had gotten excited. Just as I felt relieved, thinking about what a cute fella he was, I found myself imagining something. I could see myself at the drinking party, talking about how I liked opera. The reaction I pictured was an explosion of laughter.

“‘Opera’, you say. What’s up with that? It’s that thing where fat people raise their voices like crazy, right? You like that? Why? No way, Nakata, didn’t you just want to have a rich people hobby just ‘cause you’ve well-off these days? Like, those that feel like you’re superior. That’s exactly what opera is. Okay, I get it, but that ain’t very interesting, so how about we change the topic?”

It gave me chills.

I wasn’t creeped out by how people might talk about my hobbies. However, it was painful to have the whole genre of opera, which had saved me back when I was put in a spot like a light reaching out from the sky, be judged by people who didn’t even know the difference between Callas and Pavarotti and not be able to defend them. I had to protect what was important to me. Or else, it would get damaged. I wasn’t referring to the long-standing form of art that had been cultivated for hundreds of years. I meant my own heart. That was painful to me.

Yeah, I was somewhat aware that this wasn’t an “embarrassment”. But I was scared.

I was low-key terrified of having people pointing their fingers at me from behind with words such as “eccentric”, “weirdo” or “pretentious” for having a preference that was different from other people’s – and something that I seriously liked, no less.

With a deep breath, I took the CD’s vinyl cover. Unlike Japanese CDs, there was none of those convenient little ears that made the cover come off when you pulled it. I slowly cut it with a pair of scissors, set it on a nostalgic stereo radio and played it while referring to the table of track numbers on the backside.

Just from the intro, I already knew who was singing and what song it was.

Maria Callas’s “Casta Diva”. It was a song from an opera called “Norma”, and the meaning of it was “chaste goddess”.

What it made me reminisce to was a seriously horrible time, when I had to prepare for my death to a certain extent. Whenever this song played in the hotel’s radio program, which repeated itself over and over, this song would connect me with paradise, telling me that I didn’t need to worry about trivial matters, so I was able to leave it all aside and relax. It was that kind of song. Without a doubt, my biggest and best saver was that beautiful jeweler, but from the sidelines, opera had definitely helped me keep my sanity.

That was amazing.

I was grateful from the bottom of my heart that this form of art, which couldn’t be classified as mainstream at all in Japan and probably overseas as well, had maintained its thread of life across the centuries. It had saved me. Would the CD sales be of any help to it? Thankfully, I had some money to spend and was probably able to buy a set of all-track CDs per month. Would that be a form of repayment of any kind? It would be great if so, I thought wholeheartedly.

“Casta Diva” wasn’t too long a piece. With a voice that sounded like it was vanishing, the song ended. For whatever reason, it made me feel like crying, no matter how many times I had listened to it. It was too beautiful. It was an impossible speculation, but if Richard turned into a song, I felt that his form would change into something very close to this one.

Once I finished listening to the track, the “aaah”s and “uuuh”s had disappeared from my head. I liked opera. Opera turned into my strength. So I wanted to cherish it.

Even if someone ridiculed me for it, the problem was with the person, not with me or with opera. And my precious, beautiful shopkeeper had stated that “no discriminating other people based on their preferences” was one of the main principles of Etranger. What was I going to do by discriminating myself?

I was going to keep buying opera CDs from now on too, I swore proudly to my heart, yet secretly decided not to write about it in my blog or talk to Richard about it. Not because it was embarrassing. But rather because I had the gut feeling that I couldn’t predict what would happen in the end if I told him.

On that day, I was busy with preparations for cooking. First Saul-san, and then Richard would come to Kandy to hear the reports about the progress of my studies. It was also like a test. But I hadn’t studied half-assedly enough to chicken out at that. Above all, thanks to the negotiations in Ratnapura, I was conscious that my eyes were well-trained, if I could say so myself.

If it didn’t go well even with this, that was fine. I was happy to find new challenges. Lots of things became easier once I started feeling that studying was fun.

And since they were coming over, they wouldn’t get angry if I prepared a bit of a feast. More than anything, being able to cook a few people’s share in this house had me overjoyed. After all, I was basically living alone, so just how many times had I found delicious-looking and cheap food but had to tearfully give up because I wasn’t sure if I could eat it all by myself?

Being surrounded by things that made you happy was extremely good for the heart.

Deciding to go for an additional blow, I set the CD in the radio. A long aria began at the end of the first opus of all songs. It was a French opera called “La Fille du Régiment”, and being fond of this one had greatly helped me when I was studying French.

The man who started to sing that he was going to marry the army was a world-renowned tenor.

In the beginning, the man sang that he was going to do meritorious deeds in the army, cheered on by his companions. Since I had been listening to the words ever since back when I could only hear them as katakana spelling, my mouth moved without any reference. Of course, my voice didn’t sound like that of a tenor, but it had the same gist as somehow trying to sing in the range of a singer from some music show. Just that was fun enough.

A fish pie was baking in the oven. There were three types of curry in the smaller pots. My Nakata-style sliced veggies pickled in soy sauce, which were a mixture of chopped coconut sambal and dried fruits, were lined up on a cutting board, and the fresh fruits that I planned to make into mixed juice were all completely ready. The only thing I had left to do was preparing watalappan for dessert. It had to chill in the fridge for a while, so it was necessary to make it in advance. However, since it was my third time making it, I had the procedure memorized. No worries.

The tenor raised his voice amidst joy. The man who sang, “Ah, I’m going, I’m going to marry the army” didn’t like the army in particular, he was just in love with the abandoned girl that all the men from the regiment he was enlisted in were raising together.

The key switched to waltz. The true value of the tenor would ensue from that point onward.

The oven beeped, indicating that the pie had finished baking. With light steps, put on my gloves, took out the whole iron plate with the pie on it and gently slid it into a white porcelain plate.

A series of splendid high Cs. This referred to when the tenor raised their voice a great deal. If the composer was wonderful in reproducing the feelings of happiness into the music so keenly, then so was the singer who sang them so faithfully, I believed. The feeling of excitement turned into the melody just the way it was.

I arranged the dishes on the table and peeled the fruits. The high Cs continued one after another. I opened a can of coconut milk and mixed the contents with nut paste. The song was approaching the end. “What a fate, what a fate,” he sang, sounding merry. The highest note was near.

The song was coming to a close while celebrating happiness with the highest note. The feelings of the singer weren’t recorded in the CD, but I could hear them as comfortably as could be.

It wasn’t nearly high enough, but I sang along at a fairly loud volume.

At the same time as the song finished with a flashy grace note, I lightly kicked the open lid of the oven. It closed up neatly. With this, everything was all set. I was going to put away the CD set before the guests arrived.

Or so I had planned.

After the peak of my excitement, I noticed that someone was standing outside the window. He hadn’t come in from the front door. Hence the chime didn’t ring.

“Bravo, bravissimo.” A beautiful man wearing a white shirt and sunglasses, said glasses charmingly pushed up above his forehead, was smiling while applauding at my stiffened self.

The test was terrible that day. I didn’t think there was any issue with the contents of my answers. However, since I was stuttering so much, Saul, my mentor who was so picky about manner of speech as well as the contents of it, pointed out that I should “act more dignified”. I knew that better than anyone. There was too much noise interference in my head with things such as, “Why did I put opera on in such high spirits? What did he think of me now? As I thought, does he think that this hobby doesn’t suit me? No, that’s definitely impossible when it comes to my teacher, so I have to take control of my self-consciousness”.

And so, this is a story that happened more than half a year after that. Something that took place in Sri Lanka in May.

“Eh?”

“Happy birthday, Seigi. Here is a little present.”

“A bank deposit transfer certificate?”

“Good job reading it. That is from the USA.”

“USA...”

“There was a seat that you would probably like, so I purchased a year’s worth of it.”

“A year”? This wasn’t potato chips or cup noodles. What kind of seat was that? Was there a truck coming to deliver it? While thinking about such things, I continued reading the A4 paper, and when I got to half of it, I roared loudly. I let out a voice that sounded like a crushed frog, I believed.

The seat that Richard had given me was indeed a seat. But at a music theatre in America, which was likely the world’s most famous. It was a one-year membership card.

This was proof that “a seat will be reserved for you”. A seat just for me, for any performance, that I could use whenever I went there.

I felt lightheaded. Just how much had this “seat” cost him? What was he trying to do by giving something like this to someone who sat in swivel chairs sold at mass retailers? I did have such rational retorts in my head, but above that, I was so, so happy that I started jumping up and down. I could go to a theatre that I only knew about from CDs. Anytime, as long as I had the plane tickets. No matter who was singing.

“Can I really have this?!”

“Do you think I’m some sort of boorish lad who’d take back the treasure after making the other person happy?”

“No way! Uoooh, I’m too excited; that’s bad!”

“You are reacting like a dog again...”

“I’m gonna run in the yard for a bit!”

As I, with a messy katakana pronunciation, sang to myself the chorus part of the aria that had just finished while rolling around in the yard, Jirou ran over and mounted on me without restraint. “Owner, we’re going to play here, right? We’re going to play here, right? Come, let’s play,” he seemed to say, energetically wagging his tail. I was so happy that I hugged him and rolled about, but then I could see Richard laughing. The yard was on a slightly lower level than the house, so the house was wholly visible, so I didn’t think I was mistaken. He really was making a happy-looking face. This might have been my first time seeing that man laugh with such a child-like expression.

At that moment, something suddenly came to mind.

When Richard told me for the first time that he “likes pudding”, did he also think for a bit that it was embarrassing or wonder about what I was going to say? This man had thorough knowledge about the so-called “society”. There was no way that he hadn’t considered the possibility.

But he had told me about it.

Did I not say anything weird to him back then? “A man, liking pudding?” or “Why would a foreigner like a Japanese dessert?” It gave me the creeps. Back then, I didn’t have as much care as now regarding how to handle such circumstances. I just had words jumping out of my mouth like knives. This still applies even now, but I wanted to think it had gotten better, even if just a little.

Had I not said anything to him? Had I not hurt him? I didn’t have any way to confirm that now. If I apologized without knowing what I had said, it wouldn’t be a sincere apology.

But right now, Richard was looking at my happy self and smiling.

So I decided to stop thinking about these things. And from now on too, I would keep making heaps upon heaps of the things he liked.

I had to protect what was important to me by myself. But if I happened to notice something that mattered to someone who was dear to me, I wanted to cherish it too. I had no other choice.

After stroking Jirou, I went back to where Richard was and bowed to him again. He reciprocated the bow with a “you are welcome” and seemed about to start laughing again.

“That’s right, I was gonna make pudding. Wait just a bit more.”

“Is there anything I can help with?”

“You already got me a seat at the MET; I can’t go along with that flattery even as a joke. I’d be happy if you played with Jirou, though.”

“Then, I will take you up on those words.”

Rubbing my chest in relief, I went back to my room, patting my whole body to remove the dirt and dog hairs, and after washing my hands with soap, I returned to the kitchen.

By the looks of it, I was going to be able to listen to an opera in person one of these days – at least within a year’s time. Once I watched it live, all the curtains would close, right? For real? Was such a thing possible? Apparently yes. Hard to believe but it was true.

That man who was like an incarnation of the worldwide definition of “beauty”, and above that, who was a genius at pleasing me, was fooling around with my hybrid brown dog in the yard, illuminated by tropical sunshine. It seemed that the preparations for our feast would still take a while.

“What a wonderful day,” I hummed tentatively in French. A gorgeous tenor voice wouldn’t come out of my throat, but the things I liked would firmly support my heart nevertheless. Almost like a backbone for it. And there was someone supporting this backbone. Honestly, what a wonderful day. For now, I’d be making pudding. And share at least a little bit of this feeling.

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[whitherliliesbloom]

FFXIVWRITE2021 ☆ MY FILLS ☆ PROMPT LIST ☆ AO3 MIRROR (tba)

// COMPLETED! //

total word count: 52,093 words (including bonus) longest fill: fate matrix [5,241 words] shortest fill: sins of the spectator [537 words]

personal favorites: 03 scale - heartbeat concerto 05 fate - fate matrix 14 commend - lights, camera, duty commenced 17 destruct - when the light blinds 22 fluster - in the eyes of the beholder 23 soul - your voice will save me 29 debonair - all like magic to my riddled heart 31 nocturne - to the moon and back

01 FOSTER - taming the stray kayelily // post-shb // 888 words lily still remembers how kaye’s eyes had looked 7 summers ago, when it was filled with naught but distrust and contempt for the world

02 ABERRANT- style over shadow drk npcs // post-shb // 1,037 words sidurgu convinces himself that the black chunks of metal suited the warrior of light far more than pastel pink frills and flowers. rielle is more than eager to dispute that

03 SCALE - heartbeat concerto alphinaudxwol // nodame cantabile au // 2,605 words illya prays to the heavens that the man beside her does not hear the fortissimo that was her pounding heart.

04 BALEFUL - in scornful eyes wol, gaius & alisaie // post-sb // 838 words gaius van baelsar did not fear death, but it didn’t make the warrior of light’s glare, full of seething hatred and fury any less frightening

05 FATE (free) - fate matrix alphinaudxwol // fate matrix au // 5,241 words in a world where the hands of destiny are ones and zeros, at the center of the matrix was a little goddess who would soon find out that she too, isn’t immune to the pull of fate

06 AVATAR - discord-ance spud squad & alphinaud // modern au // 603 words alphinaud infiltrates the spud squad discord server and finds… what else, but chaos?

07 SPECULATE - sins of the spectator alphinaudxwol // post-hw // 537 words at what point does speculation turn into accusation… and accusation comes to cause harm?

08 ADROIT - sweetened tea and midnight ink alphinaudxwol // post-canon // 1,022 words there’s an art to deflection, one alphinaud thought it has fully mastered. unfortunately, his wife is even better at seeing through lies

09 FRIABLE - by the book tataru & alphinaud // pre-endwalker // 666 words the last time alphinaud tasted scones this unappetizing was back in old sharlayan. and though he doesn’t exactly mind, it is absolutely a problem when the one he hopes to gift his baked goods to also happens to be one of eorzea’s best culinarians and the hero of the star both

10 HEADY - fragrant sorrow implied kayelily // wozwald au // 1,805 words even after all these years, the scent of flowers brought the god of death the most amount of pain

11 PREACHING TO THE CHOIR - a house of cards alphinaudxwol // tears of themis au // 1,468 words it takes unwavering conviction, something alphinaud never once doubted stellis’ best junior attorney to possess in strides

12 WANDERLUST (free) - take me to where your heart meets mine alphinaudxwol // post-canon // 1,265 words the warrior of light’s home is often empty, but her heart will ever be full and bursting to the brim with love

13 ONEIROPHRENIA - quietus kaye & illya // wozwald au // 1,858 words in the midst of his delirious, drunken haze he saw her - he can’t tell if it was meant to be his final blessing or an eternal curse

14 COMMEND - lights, camera, duty commenced! illya, g’raha & emet // actors au // 2,263 words behind the scenes of the critically acclaimed long running tv show, final fantasy fourteen, g’raha tia is (almost) inconsolable after he reads the final act’s script

15 THUNDEROUS - if you can hear my tune alphinaudxwol // nodame cantabile au // 1,120 words on a particularly stormy night, when the angry claps of thunder would normally drown out the sounds of the piano, illya wonders if the boy next door would be able to hear the tune of her sincerity and gratitude

16 CRANE - birds of a feather illya & friends // no particular time period // 1,847 words though their species varies as much as the colors of their plumages, birds of a feather flock the warrior of light together

17 DESTRUCT - when the light blinds alphinaudxwol // major shb spoilers // 1,270 words when the light in her shines so brightly that the stars in her eyes have been blinded completely, alphinaud feared that he’d forever lose that which served as his beacon of hope during his darkest moments

18 DEVIL’S ADVOCATE - pearls of wisdom illya & kokomi // post-sb // 1,291 words it just takes a devil’s advocate clad in the form of an angelic surface dweller to convince kokomi to finally leave the coral palace behind

19 LUMINARY - to you who showed me the stars illya & kokomi // post-5.55 // 880 words the soft ripples upon the mirror like water turns the surface beneath their feet into a sparkling, luminescent stage. and in the midst of a meteor shower, a pair of girls who have had all their wishes fulfilled cast their eyes upwards at the star tide

20 PETRICHOR - river flows in you kaye & eulalie // post-canon, alt canon verse // 1,412 words mama wasn’t lying when she said thanalan was often full of unexpected surprises. heavy downpour upon a place named drybone, and an unplanned run in with one of her parents’ long standing allies being two of them

21 FECKLESS - what the heart is to the weak illya & ardbert // early shb // 1,556 words in both their worlds, victory was not decided by power, but by the strength of  convictions. for they who carry the fate of the realm upon their shoulders, conviction is something that must be hard earned with their blood and tears

22 FLUSTER - in the eyes of the beholder alphinaudxwol // post-canon // 2,042 words they say an artists always inadvertently pours their heart’s true feelings into their drawings

23 SOUL - your voice will save me alphinaudxwol // post-5.3 // 2,416 words it’s a long time coming, but alphinaud thinks he should finally tell the warrior of light the words his soul has been yearning to say for thousands of years

24 ILLUSTRIOUS - eyes fixed upon a shiny ray alphinaudxwol // aetherweave au // 2,858 words asking the star student of the most prestigious magic academy in eorzea out to the end of year prom is as daunting as it sounds

25 SILVER LINING - in a place where dreams continue alphinaudxwol // mermaid au // 1,422 words getting caught in a terrible storm and being thrown overboard may just be the worst thing that has ever happened to alphinaud - or the best

26 HEARTFELT - all that glitters alphinaudxwol // genshin impact au // 2,105 words on the first full moon of the lunar new year, liya has only a single selfish wish as she gazes up into the sea of lights

27 BENTHOS - beyond lulled waters alphinaudxwol // nagi no asukara au // 1,452 words where the sea meets the land, a promise is made between a boy and a girl who come from radically different worlds

28 BOW - towards a tomorrow illya & kirishimi // period drama au // 2,062 words kirishimi didn’t care for frilly dresses or etiquette unless it was to make a statement - so she gets lessons from the most ladylike friend she knows

29 DEBONAIR - all like magic to my riddled heart alphinaudxwol // post-canon // 2,415 words on the occasion that alphinaud feels confident enough to perfectly exude his charm, illya never fails to be swept off her feet

30 ABSTRACTED - weaving the present, illuminating the future illya & friends // streamers au // 2,849 words the spud squad announce their indefinite hiatus right after releasing their one year anniversary single, and illya cannot help but to feel just a tad bit melancholic

31 NOCTURNE - to the moon and back alphinaudxwol // pre-endwalker // 1,000 words “what do we have to fear? after all, we’ve come this far.”

[fyexo]

201203 The Powerful, Limitless Kai

EXO member Kai unpacks his solo debut, artistry, and how he learned to express himself.

“I wanted to show that Kai is limitless,” 26-year-old Kim Jongin, better known by his stage name Kai, tells Teen Vogue of his newly-released debut self-titled album. The word is multifaceted, conjuring up an unfettered existence or an endless void, as terrifying as it is appealing.

Kai leans toward the latter. His voice — soft, restrained, thoughtful, and at times giddy during our interview — is an anchor in that wide open space. He’s quite excited about the idea of limitlessness, of existing on more than one plane, of proving you’re more than one thing.

Kai, out November 30, is just the first step.

“Over the years I've been in the industry, many people have seen me as a member of EXO. I have performed in front of our EXO fans and SuperM fans. This is the first time I'm actually releasing something under my own name,” he says. “I want to show people who Kai is through this album. The name Kai means ‘to open’. So, I want it to be open and show a new side of me.”

The year was 2012 when EXO debuted with an intensely mythological, high-concept origin story. Shortly after the heart of the Tree of Life dried up due to the red forces’ incessant attacks, Kai descended to Earth — along with the rest of the members of EXO — as part of the legends that “see the same sky but shall stand on different grounds, shall stand on the same ground but shall see different skies.” (A parallel to EXO’s original split into two groups, one focused on China’s pop market, the other on Korea’s.) Each member has his own superpower, and Kai’s is teleportation, although he doesn’t always know what to do with it. During the music video for “Lucky One," the rest of EXO use their powers to fend off villains, but Kai breaks out into dance. (Though if you’ve seen Kai dance, you’ll know that’s as much a superpower as anything.)

That may be Kai’s beginning, but he was brought to life by Kim Jongin, the youngest of three siblings, who grew up in Suncheon, South Korea, with an early interest in ballet and jazz dance. Taking on the persona of Kai at 17 years old, he began to set the framework for what he’d soon become known for: a fluid, captivating dance style infused with seemingly endless confidence, smirking through concept changes with ease. As EXO’s popularity hit the stratosphere shortly after their single “Growl” — with performances on world stages like the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the multi-million selling 9-member group remains one of the most revered acts in modern-day K-pop — so did Kai’s reputation as one of the most enigmatic performers in Korean idol music.

Duality is one of K-pop’s favorite concepts, and the endearing dichotomy between Kai and Jongin is a perfect example of where the person and the artist diverge. On stage, Kai paints a mysterious picture, flitting from lithe self-possession to seductive swagger, to borderline arrogance. Off stage, however, Jongin is uncharacteristically shy: he blushes when complimented by his group members, often forgets his own passwords (and asks friends to help out), and is obsessed with his niece and nephew.

While every gaze, every spin, every step with Kai is intentional, Kim Jongin is as free of the bounds of pretense as it gets. It could be as easy as turning a switch on or off, but that would be doing Kai’s ethos a disservice. It’s subliminal. “Kai is me in my dream state,” he says. “When I'm sleeping, it's like my dream character comes alive, and that would be Kai. I’m more of a normal, down-to-earth person. That's just me, but Kai is this persona that's on stage… I do notice that when I'm dancing and pulling off all these different concepts, [I’m] like a totally different person outside of myself doing that.”

And if EXO member Kai is one type of persona, solo performer Kai is another. He previewed Kai with a short film song-sampler, in which he “teleports” through a cinematic thoroughfare of concepts, each one diving deeper. In “Hello Stranger,” his voice is the lighthouse in the storm of the bustling city, asking to talk about the things that overwhelm you. “Reason” is a modern-day fairytale, with Kai as the quirky, attention-grabbing prince in a sea of droning conversations and pretentious debutantes. Hold his hand, turn the corner, and you meet Bad Boy Kai in “Amnesia,” sheathed in leather and a mullet (a hairstyle that continues to be one of the greatest things ever to happen to K-pop) and leaning into noble sacrifice: “Forget me before I know you,” he says. How can you?

We pass through scores of mirrors, each with a different version of Kai as he croons, “Don’t think about anything else.” He holds this attention until the mirrors open into a vast landscape. Now, he is the one looking at a mirror of his own — clad in lace and soft whites and vocalizing his desires openly, “Nothing On Me” is his version of suave vulnerability. The story ends on “Ride Or Die,” a throwback to yesteryears with its heavy, sensual synths and noir setup. It’s a full circle moment; this Kai is the same one we get a glimpse of within the first few seconds of the film, as a hologram. All this while, the mirrors that pull us through the songs have been windows, a journey through the hallways of Kai’s mind, ending in the confident reassurance that he will “ride or die” with us, till the end.

“[I wanted to show] that I can do anything and that anything is possible,” he says. “It’s the connection between teleportation and the limitless possibilities that I have as an artist, as Kai. I wanted to showcase that all of these different sides are Kai, are myself.” And he learned a lot about himself in the process of making the album. “To be honest, I was pretty stressed preparing for all of this on my own, but I think I learned a lot about myself throughout this process. Not just myself as an artist, but [also] a lot about myself as a person: my personality, how I deal with stress, and just... what I’m like as a human being.”

Teleportation is an apt comparison for Kai’s continued interest in embracing other art forms and expanding his artistic lexicon. If that comes with playing with the constraints of conventional style, fashion, and masculinity, then so be it. Like his artistry, his sartorial expression is boundless: whether it’s the slew of crop tops worn to highlight the chorus in “Don’t Mess Up My Tempo”, which gave us one of the most memorable fan-cams of 2018; to the shirtless red suit for “Love Shot” that, frankly, deserves its own museum; to the soft yet dangerous combination of flaming red and lace he’s sporting in the highlight medley for Kai. Every outfit is the period at the end of his words, mapping out his own zeitgeist.

“As my career progressed, fashion itself became a way to express myself on stage and the being that I am,” he says. “It's not just about expressing the song or the concept itself. I think it’s really important for me to try new things and have people notice what I've been trying. I actually want people to look back on the styles that I've tried as an example for them to reference later on. Fashion has become a really important thing for me to develop myself.”

At the heart of these many concepts, of both his Kai persona and his life as Jongin, is movement. Kim Jongin and Kai share a fundamental receptiveness to the world, and of course, a singular, synchronous rhythm that has become the bedrock of his artistry, whether as part of EXO or out on his own.

“When I was younger and I first started dancing, I think I just simply loved dancing itself. I was immersed in the art of dancing,” he says. “I loved doing it, but I think as I've progressed as a performer, as my career has grown, dancing has not only become something I love to do, but it's also become a tool [to] express myself on stage and to audiences. Dancing has been part of more than half of my life now. It’s like a friend that I can't live without.”

source: Tanu I. Raj @ Teen Vogue

[opbackgrounds]

Hi there Sarc' ;) I am sorry if the question has already been asked but I thought it could be interesting to have your opinion about this. While I love most of the female characters in OP and think that most of them are well developed and can be truly good role models for girls I still feel that Oda sometimes has a sexist view on female characters (the jokes about the naked bath scenes for example or Kororo being considered ugly make me really uncomfortable). What do you think about it?

Ah, I wondered when I would get this question. 

When people talk about sexism in One Piece they typically are referring to two different things: How women are drawn, and how they’re treated within the narrative. While there’s some overlap here, there’s enough distinction that I want to address them as two separate points in two separate posts, because I guess I had Opinions, and by god there should be a limit to how much text one tumblr post can be expected to hold. Consider this an introduction.

Buckle up, kiddos. This is gonna be a long one. 

Nami Face Syndrome Isn’t the Problem...

An important thing to remember with Oda’s art and storytelling style is that almost everything is hyper exaggerated for effect. You don’t go into One Piece looking for realism. You don’t go into One Piece expecting the characters to act like normal people. Everything--from the art to the humor to the battles--is stretched and pulled to its absolute limit in hopes of garnering a particular reaction. When a character is sad they cry big bubbly tears with dribbles of snot coming from their nose. When they laugh their mouths take up half their face. 

And when a girl is hot, her tiddies are two great big watermelons stuck to the center of her chest.

What is often dubbed “Nami Face Syndrome” within the fandom is somewhat misleading. After all, why was Wanda, who is a literal dog that walks on two legs, decried as yet another Nami clone at her introduction? I would postulate it’s less to do with her face and more to do with the fact that from the neck down they are virtually identical, something that’s made more obvious because Wanda is literally wearing Nami’s clothes

What makes this frustrating for a lot of people, myself included, is that it’s not that Oda is incapable of drawing more diverse body types, but that he often chooses not to. Take for example the Kuja tribe

or the Charlotte family daughters (thanks to Arthur at Library of Ohara for the resource). It’s pretty clear Oda has the chops to make his women as weird as the men, and he often does! For important characters, even. And yes, as the Kokoro example given above sometimes the gonkness is brought attention to, but for others like Lola and Chiffon it’s...not. 

(more on mermaids later)

But Sarcasticles, one might protest, even Oda’s “ugly” characters have ginormous boobs! Where is my itty bitty titty committee representation >:(

To which I can only shrug. For Oda, boobs on a woman are like abs on men. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, they’re gonna have ‘em

Seriously, Oda. What the fuck.

...So What Is?

I have a theory that’s impossible to prove, and that the problem isn’t so much Oda’s character design so much as the ratio of his male to female characters in general. It’s not that every female character is a Nami clone, but Oda has a template he uses for attractive female characters ages 16-25, the same way he uses Robin as a template for attractive women ages 26-35, which is how you get cases of mistaken identity like Viola for Robin or scenes during Reverie where one could be forgiven for thinking Nami’s supposed to be an identical triplet

 Oda does this for his men, too. It’s not as obvious because 1) Even men with similar facial features can have a wider variety body types due to Oda having a sliding scale of buffness he’s willing to attach to a pretty face and 2) There are more men. 

There are a lot more men.

In groups where the male to female ratio is more or less equal (Baroque Works, Big Mom’s kids) you get a wide variety of designs. But there’s only one female Supernova. There’s one female Warlord. CP9 only has one female agent. Only one of the Revolutionary Commanders is a woman. There are very few female background characters in crowd shots, especially among marines. Big Mom might be the only female Emperor, but she’s not young, In fact, when drawing her at age 28, Oda defaults to a much more generic “pretty girl” face before giving her much more striking, memorable features in her 40s

If you look at Oda’s male characters, the ones that are supposed to be hot are often given the same square jawline and the thin-bladed nose that at one point in time was reserved for Robin. Both Coby and Sabo had very distinctive noses before their glowups, while Ace must have had a laser treatment done on his eyebrows sometime between Alabasta and Marineford. 

But the biggest difference on the men has got to be muscle mass. The overgrown noodles of early One Piece are lost to the annals of time. Shanks alone must have gained 30 pounds of pure muscle from the time Luffy got his first bounty to his appearance at Marineford. 

Now, I will acknowledge that there is a difference between the increasing sexualization of female characters and the male power fantasy of giving Zoro bara tiddies post-timeskip. While I do think there are certain male characters specifically designed to be the Hot Dude, what I’m trying to emphasize here is that Oda works with templates for both men and women, and both of those templates have been exaggerated over time. Bigger boobs for women, more muscles for men. And when you’re only slotting for one girl in any given group, and that one girl has to be The Hot One then you’re going to have a lot of ladies that end up looking the same. 

My love for Otohime on this blog is well known, and I want to use her as an example of what Oda can do when he works beyond this template, because it’s really freaking good  

Otohime is neither conventionally attractive nor gonk. She’s dressed in very conservative, traditional clothing and has a narrow waist and small chest. 

There are no sharp edges on Otohime. Not her eyebrows, not her jaw, and most of the time not even her hands, emphasizing her gentle nature. You don’t see it as well in this panel, but Otohime’s head is often drawn wider than her shoulders, emphasizing her frailty. Oda gives her a longer neck to compensate, and the overall effect is a very soft, willowy figure. 

Her headpiece looks like a sunburst. The audience never sees her fins, so Oda gives her a scale patterned kimono-dress-thingy (my knowledge of Japanese clothing is, uh, not good) as a visual reminder that she’s not human. The sash that circles around her head harkens back to Japanese mythology as a symbol of divinity, similar to a halo in Western culture. And fun fact: Otohime is named after a god, just like Neptune, while her goals and ideals are pure enough to be heaven-sent. 

I’m not an artist, but this is a really damn good character design. A lot of Oda’s older female characters are. Dandan, Tsuru, O-Tsuru, Shakky, Kureha, Big Mom, and Nyon are all instantly recognizable and have strong designs, even if a few of them fall into the hourglass figure that Oda often defaults to. It’s just...there aren’t that many of them.

So the question becomes why aren’t there more women, and I think the answer is because, ultimately, One Piece is a series geared at boys. While I wish there were a few more important ladies, I can understand why there aren’t. 

Note, that doesn’t mean I think it’s right or that Oda is obligated to include more women. It’s just one of the facts of the shonen manga industry at this point in time. 

A more important question, I think, is why does every younger woman have to be attractive? And why do the attractive ladies have to wear outfits that are blatant fanservice? This is something I don’t have an answer for. Oda has said on more than one occasion that he writes One Piece with his twelve year old self in mind. It could be that it’s a calculated move to appeal to his audience, in which case it’s certainly worked because said Hot Ladies are constantly used in marketing and merchandising. It’s the Hot Ladies that top the popularity charts (although, to be fair, who’s there for competition?). In the most recent chapter a new Hot Lady was introduced, and the fandom went batshit crazy for her.

Even the fans who are very vocal about how Oda sucks at drawing women. It’s interesting how that works out sometimes.

Or maybe I’m giving Oda too much credit, and he’s just horny. Not having direct access to Oda’s mind, I don’t have an answer. If I had to guess I’d say it’s a little of Column A, a little of Column B, because that’s usually how life is. 

But in a vacuum big tiddies are just a design choice. An exaggerated aesthetic, in a series full of exaggerated aesthetics. It’s when that design choice is paired with in-story comments, actions, and decisions where things really start to get heated. But that’s a whole other ball of wax, and there should be a limit to how much one tumblr post can be expected to hold. I promise I’ll get to the meat of your question next time.

Thank you so much for your patience. I really do think it’s important to start here before diving into everything else, if only because it helps keep my thoughts organized. I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if not, I hope to do better next time. 

[dailyexo]

[INTERVIEW] Kai - 201203 Teen Vogue: “The Powerful, Limitless Kai”

"EXO member Kai unpacks his solo debut, artistry, and how he learned to express himself.

“I wanted to show that Kai is limitless,” 26-year-old Kim Jongin, better known by his stage name Kai, tells Teen Vogue of his newly-released debut self-titled album. The word is multifaceted, conjuring up an unfettered existence or an endless void, as terrifying as it is appealing.

Kai leans toward the latter. His voice — soft, restrained, thoughtful, and at times giddy during our interview — is an anchor in that wide open space. He’s quite excited about the idea of limitlessness, of existing on more than one plane, of proving you’re more than one thing.

Kai, out November 30, is just the first step.

“Over the years I've been in the industry, many people have seen me as a member of EXO. I have performed in front of our EXO fans and SuperM fans. This is the first time I'm actually releasing something under my own name,” he says. “I want to show people who Kai is through this album. The name Kai means ‘to open’. So, I want it to be open and show a new side of me.”

The year was 2012 when EXO debuted with an intensely mythological, high-concept origin story. Shortly after the heart of the Tree of Life dried up due to the red forces’ incessant attacks, Kai descended to Earth — along with the rest of the members of EXO — as part of the legends that “see the same sky but shall stand on different grounds, shall stand on the same ground but shall see different skies.” (A parallel to EXO’s original split into two groups, one focused on China’s pop market, the other on Korea’s.) Each member has his own superpower, and Kai’s is teleportation, although he doesn’t always know what to do with it. During the music video for “Lucky One," the rest of EXO use their powers to fend off villains, but Kai breaks out into dance. (Though if you’ve seen Kai dance, you’ll know that’s as much a superpower as anything.)

That may be Kai’s beginning, but he was brought to life by Kim Jongin, the youngest of three siblings, who grew up in Suncheon, South Korea, with an early interest in ballet and jazz dance. Taking on the persona of Kai at 17 years old, he began to set the framework for what he’d soon become known for: a fluid, captivating dance style infused with seemingly endless confidence, smirking through concept changes with ease. As EXO’s popularity hit the stratosphere shortly after their single “Growl” — with performances on world stages like the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the multi-million selling 9-member group remains one of the most revered acts in modern-day K-pop — so did Kai’s reputation as one of the most enigmatic performers in Korean idol music.

Duality is one of K-pop’s favorite concepts, and the endearing dichotomy between Kai and Jongin is a perfect example of where the person and the artist diverge. On stage, Kai paints a mysterious picture, flitting from lithe self-possession to seductive swagger, to borderline arrogance. Off stage, however, Jongin is uncharacteristically shy: he blushes when complimented by his group members, often forgets his own passwords (and asks friends to help out), and is obsessed with his niece and nephew.

While every gaze, every spin, every step with Kai is intentional, Kim Jongin is as free of the bounds of pretense as it gets. It could be as easy as turning a switch on or off, but that would be doing Kai’s ethos a disservice. It’s subliminal. “Kai is me in my dream state,” he says. “When I'm sleeping, it's like my dream character comes alive, and that would be Kai. I’m more of a normal, down-to-earth person. That's just me, but Kai is this persona that's on stage… I do notice that when I'm dancing and pulling off all these different concepts, [I’m] like a totally different person outside of myself doing that.”

And if EXO member Kai is one type of persona, solo performer Kai is another. He previewed Kai with a short film song-sampler, in which he “teleports” through a cinematic thoroughfare of concepts, each one diving deeper. In “Hello Stranger,” his voice is the lighthouse in the storm of the bustling city, asking to talk about the things that overwhelm you. “Reason” is a modern-day fairytale, with Kai as the quirky, attention-grabbing prince in a sea of droning conversations and pretentious debutantes. Hold his hand, turn the corner, and you meet Bad Boy Kai in “Amnesia,” sheathed in leather and a mullet (a hairstyle that continues to be one of the greatest things ever to happen to K-pop) and leaning into noble sacrifice: “Forget me before I know you,” he says. How can you?

We pass through scores of mirrors, each with a different version of Kai as he croons, “Don’t think about anything else.” He holds this attention until the mirrors open into a vast landscape. Now, he is the one looking at a mirror of his own — clad in lace and soft whites and vocalizing his desires openly, “Nothing On Me” is his version of suave vulnerability. The story ends on “Ride Or Die,” a throwback to yesteryears with its heavy, sensual synths and noir setup. It’s a full circle moment; this Kai is the same one we get a glimpse of within the first few seconds of the film, as a hologram. All this while, the mirrors that pull us through the songs have been windows, a journey through the hallways of Kai’s mind, ending in the confident reassurance that he will “ride or die” with us, till the end.

“[I wanted to show] that I can do anything and that anything is possible,” he says. “It’s the connection between teleportation and the limitless possibilities that I have as an artist, as Kai. I wanted to showcase that all of these different sides are Kai, are myself.” And he learned a lot about himself in the process of making the album. “To be honest, I was pretty stressed preparing for all of this on my own, but I think I learned a lot about myself throughout this process. Not just myself as an artist, but [also] a lot about myself as a person: my personality, how I deal with stress, and just... what I’m like as a human being.”

Teleportation is an apt comparison for Kai’s continued interest in embracing other art forms and expanding his artistic lexicon. If that comes with playing with the constraints of conventional style, fashion, and masculinity, then so be it. Like his artistry, his sartorial expression is boundless: whether it’s the slew of crop tops worn to highlight the chorus in “Don’t Mess Up My Tempo”, which gave us one of the most memorable fan-cams of 2018; to the shirtless red suit for “Love Shot” that, frankly, deserves its own museum; to the soft yet dangerous combination of flaming red and lace he’s sporting in the highlight medley for Kai. Every outfit is the period at the end of his words, mapping out his own zeitgeist.

“As my career progressed, fashion itself became a way to express myself on stage and the being that I am,” he says. “It's not just about expressing the song or the concept itself. I think it’s really important for me to try new things and have people notice what I've been trying. I actually want people to look back on the styles that I've tried as an example for them to reference later on. Fashion has become a really important thing for me to develop myself.”

At the heart of these many concepts, of both his Kai persona and his life as Jongin, is movement. Kim Jongin and Kai share a fundamental receptiveness to the world, and of course, a singular, synchronous rhythm that has become the bedrock of his artistry, whether as part of EXO or out on his own.

“When I was younger and I first started dancing, I think I just simply loved dancing itself. I was immersed in the art of dancing,” he says. “I loved doing it, but I think as I've progressed as a performer, as my career has grown, dancing has not only become something I love to do, but it's also become a tool [to] express myself on stage and to audiences. Dancing has been part of more than half of my life now. It’s like a friend that I can't live without.”"

Credit: Teen Vogue.