#and i thought i could finish drawing that while watching later episodes

[polarsirens]

The Ring of Brass endures.

i have made the mistake of beginning this series at a very emotionally low point and now i am just.... grieving for all of these people. of this city. of this land and i don’t think i will be okay for a long, long while. i know this is not my usual terror content but i just ... made this and i wanted to save it somewhere. oh my god i’ve never watched d&d, let alone critical role before i literally don’t go here but this series.

i will need some time to recover but oh. i am just continuously weeping while drawing my hands are all curled up. i only wanted to see more of brennan lee mulligan because i saw a short on youtube and thought he was a comedian i did not expect this. (again i’m sorry for inflicting this upon you all and offer you a textless version ??)

[py-dreamer]

So... I know I'm late...

But yea! I said I was coming back with some stickers and I kept my word! I would've hoped that I could've completed the sheet in like a day but as you can see...that didn't work out

I know I've been a bit MIA lately but burnout sucks. I do have a lot of WIPS I really want to work on but again, it seems that the ProcrastiNation hath struck my feeble mortal brain again.

But anyways:

I headcanon Aroace Mei, just a personal headcanon (disagree if you like) I also like lesbian Mei but thought I'd give some aroace appreciation

Silktea was only given 1 episode but OH BOY did it fuel our wild shipping habits. And I jumped on the bandwagon. It's a reference to that scene in She-Ra where Scorpia tells Catra she 'didn't want to do this' then wraps kitty up in the blankey and cradles her like a wee baby. And Sandy would do that for any friend, I will die on this hill

Saw a fanart where Mk had a pig nose themed pacifier and I just yoinked that idea. The pig hoodie and the pacifier seems like something Tang would do for Pigsy (also to get away with free noodles cause who can say no to that face?~)

Mac showing Wukong the lantern. What can I say, mans' fascinated by them pretty lights. Though our little performer's eyes seem to be straying from the show (^u ')

I know many people have issues with shipping with Nezha and such and I know the two had a rough history but y'know what fans do; they love to make the people who kill each other soulmates (platonic, romantic or otherwise) Even if it wasn't romantic, I still love the idea of them being buddies and just chilling, the danger noodle prince and the angy prince snuggle and watch a movie (mainly from Nezha 2019 but I also saw New Gods and can I just say, I want those two twinks to bicker then kiss awkwardly and I want Yun Xiang to BEAT. HIS. ASS) but in case anyone asks, I do perceive Nezha to be a consenting adult in general outside shipping drama and if the two are adults, it does make my heart squeal when I see these two hold hands and whatnot

HOW COULD I EVER FORGET MY SPICYBOIS, inspired by that one Ponyo kiss scene. I was actually gonna make a bigger piece but then I saw someone do it already in a much better fashion than I ever could and I just gave up on the idea but Ig here, its just like the two cakes mentality and I gave it a go. Hope I could do the concept justice

Have spider queen or scorpion queen ever interacted before? No. But they are both queens and I believe Spider Queen's confidence could rub off on Scorpion Queen and she'd appreciate the company of Spider Queen's children henchmen. Also she give yummy food so lesbian venomqueens for the win

Redraw of that moment with Peng and Azure. I normally detest that bird but these two do get some gears grinding and whatever anyone says. Neither of those two are straight. I'll tell ya that.

Toxicinsanity is another rarepair that had like 1 sec screen time. I don't think they'd ever work out in canon and had virtually no chemistry. I still love all the fluffy ship content I can find of them though and if it ever were to happen. I think the mayor would scare the sh!t out of Syntax

Let's get at least one hetero couple here, Chang'e and Hou'Yi are a couple of favorites ngl, I took most of their outfits from Over the moon cause both of them looked stunning, Chang'e especially. I've seen people ship mah girl with other people and while I do agree it's healthy to move on, in my heart she will always long for Hou'Yi

Also irl, on valentines, my mum took us out for lunch, she treated us to bubble tea and donuts. We walked home so I waited to drink mah drink in my room while I drew and I accidentally finished it all... I'm so sorry mum

f*ck I forgot ironbull. Uhh....I'll draw something later, rn I need to go to bed before I get yelled at...

click pic for less sh!ty quality!

[theemissuniverse]

“TIME OUT” RAIDEN X COMEDIC RELIEF FEM!READER

SUMMARY : I cannot stop laughing at this idea. All y’all need to know is that it’s based off THAT Drake and Josh episode. Also reader has a big crush on Raiden and Raiden does feel the same way but he’s more chill about it

WARNING : slight implication of smut so minors don’t interact

MASTERLIST

You and Raiden had finally finished building the wooded shed for the monks to hang the garments on.

Raiden dusted his hands off. “Alright. We’re done. I just got to go down and get the-“ He was walking to where he thought the door was. His body collided with the wooden wall. Raiden stood there confused. He then saw the problem.

You were suppose to cut the damn door out with the power saw but you did not. All you did was draw a door on the wood.

Raiden blinked his eyes as he could not believe you didn’t do the one thing he had asked you to do because he was the one that was doing all the work. He slowly turned to you. “(Y/N)…”

You saw the angry expression that was on Raiden’s face and you shrugged. “What?”

“Where’s the door hole?”

You pointed like it was obvious. “It goes right there. I drew it with magic marker.”

“You were suppose to cut it out with the power saw.”

“I’m gonna!”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah!”

Raiden motioned for you to try and leave. “So go get the power saw.”

“Okay I will.” You said to him while walking. “Sheesh. Grouchy much?” Your face planted on the door. You stood there confused. Why did it not open? You placed your hands on the wooded wall, trying to push it. You then looked around to see if there was a way out, there wasn’t.

You nodded, now understanding Raiden’s anger. “I see the problem.”

“Oh do you?”

“How do we get out of here?”

Raiden noticed a tiny hole that was cut out to be like a window. He stuck his head out a little and saw Johnny and Kung Lao walking by. “Johnny! Kung Lao!” They turned to him. “I need you to get me the saw.”

Johnny looked at him confused. “Why?”

“Because (Y/N) forgot to cut the door out and we’re trapped.”

“Oh!” You placed your hands on your hips. “So you’re blaming me? You know, I shouldn’t even be in here! I’m a woman!”

“I’m not blaming you.” Raiden told you. When he seen the look on your face, he rephrased it. “Okay I am blaming you but only a little bit.”

Johnny thought this was a perfect idea for you two to be alone together. He knew that you had the biggest crush on Raiden so now would be your chance. “Oh..we would hand you the power saw but..we can’t.”

Kung Lao turned to him confused. “We can’t?”

Johnny nudged him. “No, we can’t because we gotta be at that thing.”

Kung Lao understood what Johnny was doing. “Ohhh. Yeah. That one thing. We’re getting snow cones.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Raiden gave them a look through the hole. “It’s literally right there. You can just hand it to me.” The two of them looked at each other and ran away. “Johnny! Kung Lao!”

“Bring me a snow cone!” You yelled out.

Raiden sighed. “Now what are we going to do?”

You brushed it off. “Relax. We’ll be fine. We’re Earthrealm’s champions. We can handle a little claustrophobia.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER…

“I CAN’T HANDLE CLAUSTROPHOBIA!!!” Raiden watched you scream as you ran all over the place (or at least you tried since the space was so small.) He had his head in his hands, shaking his head.

You stopped in a corner and felt the walls. You started to hyperventilate. “The walls are closing in. The walls are closing in!”

Raiden grabbed a hold of your shoulders and brought you into his chest. Your back was facing his chest. “The walls are not closing in. I’m sure Lord Liu Kang will find us and we will be fine.”

You giggled like a school girl at his touch. “Yes. We will be fine.”

Raiden felt your hand reach lower and lower to his private area and when you made it there, he raised a brow. “(Y/N)?”

“Yes, Raiden?”

Before he could say something, the two of you heard noises. Raiden walked over to the hole and saw Johnny and Kung Lao eating snow cones. “Are you two going to let us out now?”

“No.” Kung Lao said before handing Raiden a snow cone. “But we got (Y/N) a snow cone.”

Raiden examined it in his hands and you cheered, clapping your hands. “Yay! Snow cones.” You took it from him and started to eat it.

Raiden looked around him as if everyone was crazy except him. “Am I the only sane one here?”

“We’ll let you and (Y/N) decide that. Bye.” Johnny told him and they walked away again.

“By the Elder Gods…” Raiden mumbled. He started to undo the button on his clothes. “It’s getting hot in here.”

You nodded, practically drooling of the imagination of Raiden having his shirt off as you ate your snow cone. “Yeah. We should both honestly just get naked. You know, to prevent heat exhaustion.”

“Yeah..” Then he realized what you said. “Wait what?”

TEN MINUTES LATER…

Raiden was falling asleep. You were playing a game on your phone. You yelled out when you lost the level. “Fuck you! Stupid train.”

Raiden woke up. He rubbed his eyes a little and saw you on your phone. He immediately stood up. “You had your phone on you the entire time?!”

“Yeah. Why?”

“We could’ve called somebody to let us out, that’s why. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t ask.” You said simply. Then your phone died. “Dammit. Stupid IPhone.” Raiden slowly was starting to lose his sanity. He rubbed his temples to try to make the irritation go away. “Something tells me you’re upset.”

You stood up from the ground and all Raiden did was sigh. “Elder Gods, if you can hear me, please get me-“

“SPIDER!” You shouted and immediately clutched onto Raiden.

Raiden looked down to the ground and stomped on it with his foot. “It’s gone.”

You didn’t let go. You continued to snuggle against him and sighed dreamily. “You’re so warm.”

“Um, thank you?”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER…

You and Raiden were sitting next to each other. You were playing with a hair tie. Raiden was playing with a rock. “I didn’t think a human being could get this bored.” He said.

You shrugged. “You want to make out?”

Raiden gave you a look.

FIVE MINUTES LATER…

Raiden cupped the right side of your face as he kissed you. You cupped the left side of his face. Your stomach was doing cartwheels.

He had to admit, you were a good kisser. He gently laid you down and got on top of you, still kissing you.

You pulled away and started kissing his neck. Raiden moaned slightly. His hand was about to slide in your pants so he could play with your clit.

They heard the power saw turn on. The two of you immediately pulled away.

Johnny had cut out the door. “Hey, kiddos. Thought it was time to let you out of jail.” He looked at the two of you and you two were fixing yourselves. He gasped, putting two and two together. “No way!” He looked away. “Kung Lao! It totally worked! They were going at it.”

Raiden rolled his eyes slightly and stood up and walked out. “Finally.”

Johnny turned to you and winked at you and you laughed.

Well that was something.

TAGGING : @zhivaxo , @sinclxirx , @roseflowerbed12 , @daeneeryss , @blexel

[bluginkgo]

Just what in the fack did I watch... I'm gonna go watch it again just for funsies and to cry again (Rambles/Thoughts)

This post will mostly contain random rambles and thoughts I had while watching and rewatching the episode. And a lot of this is just going to be me ranting about scenes (the rants will most likely make you wanna go "Ginkgo, that's common sense we can see it smh." XD Just roll with it. Oh and NUzi scenes

Spoilers, duh and lots of words. Oh and gore warning? Kinda?

I mean... that scary *ss mother facking thing towards the end- you know what I'm talking about if you watched the ep 😅

First thing I found interesting, is how the Solver behaves in this scene. It's mere shadows, not even fully manifested. Further proves that the Solver transcends simple time and space, and is on a different plane of existence- a 4th dimension if you will.

The humans did, in fact, learn how to control the Solver. The pentagram like projections act as gravity enforcers and lights that subdue the solver for a period of time. Buuuut it seems that it's not full proof. It seems that this occurance is fairly common, seeing as the workers nearby were not very concerned that an eldrich being was about to break loose.

Alright another slow moment here. But I had to google wtf "MacGuffin" meant (English isn't my first language, so take it easy on me ;w;). And taking this straight from the google search "an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot." So most likely, the Absolute Solver is referring to the fact that Mitchell the intern set things in motion simply because he was mistaken for the real Dr. Chambers... Classic- CLASSIC human mistake XD

So... Heart/Nori. Something interesting is going on with her. I believe Nori WAS injured by the DDs and had to be finished off by Khan. I'll touch on Khan a bit later. But, just as seen with Eldrich J... I'm not sure why I've never thought of this before! It makes sense for Nori's corrupted core: Heart, to still function properly. Meaning, she could have snuck away when she was killed and returned to the cathedral to search for the crucifix. Uzi gets most of her style from Nori 🥹. Seems like Uzi got her mom's style and Khan's engineering abilities.

I had it all wrong- and I am ALL FOR IT! N wasn't afraid of something he saw ahead. He was upset with what they left BEHIND! V! And THIS ENTIRE SCENE

You cannot believe how surprised I was. This scene was so much better than I could have imagined it. Yes, it was painful to watch, but sweet robo-god this was executed SO DAM WELL TwT It was delicious angst. And Tessa was not in fact drawing her sword on Uzi, but instead protecting her... kinda... with an ulterior motive of course.

The gut wrenching betrayal right there. The animation team did a wonderful job at animating the betrayal and how it manifested in Uzi. Disbelief and then anger.

Not to mention her stumble. I hyper fixated on that stumble a bit too much on my first 2 watches. (Yes, I've rewatched the episode 8 times now, hush I love it XD). Her stumble shows weakness. And in that moment, she wishes to be anything BUT weak. The suspicion of betrayal is settling in, and she needs to be able to fight back. But her body is giving out. The events are taking a toll on her. And makes me appreciate the animation detail that much more.

This scene N is definitely angry. He's trying his best to keep it together and Tessa's pressure to injure and kill Uzi is not helping. So for him to be talking to Uzi, while glaring at Tessa is just him driving the point home. He is NOT going to hurt Uzi, no matter what they might find down in the labs.

But a poor choice of words that was. It gives Uzi a glimpse of what was actually happening and what has been bothering N. The trust vaporizes, and with it, any attempts with communication.

And what I believe, gives a nod back to ep2. As N steps in to try to help Uzi up, she retreats. Same happens in this episode. And the kicker? "Falling... for you" song starts lightly playing in the background.

This is far too comical after he says he deserves to have his limbs cut off. The whiplash I got from that is ridiculous... in a sad and funny way.

What an amazing shot. But it does paint a picture of what the DDs have done. Perhaps the blood also acted as cooling agents, and this is why the trend continued with robots- except this time around as oil. And this is what the Administration CYN most likely blocked out. Not only the manor time, but also the bloodbath that followed as Earth collapsed.

THE DOG MADE IT IN AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It's interesting on how the solver manifests in the drones. It seems that Uzi's wings and tail, do not make the solver go insane, and she can continue to use it. However, later in the episode the same wings and tail go berserk. So it seems that once the transformation has set in- like with Uzi- it becomes part of the drone rather something that is manifested by the Absolute Solver's control.

SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE XD Part 2A that Khan refers to is on the bottom left corner, the green core that Uzi got a hold of back in pilot episode- also titled as "I think this is a robot liver or something lol."

Plan B: Uzi could have had a normal gun if railgun didn't work. Bottom right corner

Top left corner under Uzi's railgun title: "30 min recharge time. That'll be fine." Famous last words ever XD

Top right corner: "Other things it can do: Not judge me, force prom dance, I can say I had friends but fricken murdered them with sci fi weaponry."

I love how sassy he is here XD His character development and arc is something that I will never forget. He has definitely come a great ways. Khan also seems adamant about his wife being completely dead. Which proves that he didn't know a single thing about the Absolute Solver and what it can do. He could only reference Nori's insane drawings and deduce that the planet was going to eat them all soon.

Idk if this is just my tired brain, but this comment felt like a joke to me. (Remember, I don't know anything about computers and the language ;w;) But the physical patch to save herself... as in, the same patches that are sent out for games/programs to fix bugs? That's the joke I got out of that one 😅

This entire sequence was something out of my nightmares XD The heel tapping that KEPT GETTING QUICKER definitely had me reeling back from the screen XD

The Nori and Yeva scene was so wholesome 🥹. I loved the way the animators showed their interaction. Despite the hellish events, they were still close.

My only issue with this image is, on what is Doll moving? Not like the floor. The core is gone from her body, what the heck is still driving her forward? Perhaps just on the sheer will to warn Uzi to "fight back." And I suppose I can see how she could still move without her main core. Almost acting like chickens do, when you cut their heads off. One was able to live for 18 months after the head was cut. So I suppose I can get behind the idea that Doll's final wish was to warn Uzi, at the very least, and thus forced the body to move until it did so.

But then, Tessa shows up. Which makes me wonder if she was the one that simply lead Doll's body to come to Uzi. How? Uhhh... Absolute Solver! Let's just go with that sweat face. The con in that theory is a simple: why? Why bother leading Doll to Uzi? To spook her? To give a false reason to attack Uzi? Given that N was still very much behind them all, I don't see why the Absolute Solver would try to make up some odd reason to attack Uzi. It could just simply... go ahead. There was no one there to fool, and could incapacitate Uzi easily. Buuuut I could also be looking too deep into this, as per usual.

Hey guess what.

I found the answer. XD Just as I'm typing this up, a frame popped up.

Yup, the core was still inside and thus running Doll and thus Doll could move, ok carry on. XD

Emotions spike the Absolute Solver, something that I love seeing and appears to be less headcanon and more canon at this point for me. Through the entire episode, the Solver keeps glitching out and forcing Uzi to lose control because in this situation, she's very stressed. A betrayal, a misunderstanding, learning about the past, everything becomes too much. This makes keeping the solver at bay that much harder.

He did NOT give her any chance. Yes or no, Tessa. That suddenness surprised me- in a good way. This shows how much N has grown. He's willing to stand up for his beliefs that much better. If he suspects something, he now acts on it, and does not wait for the other side to perhaps change his mind.

This scene. This scene shall live in my head rent free for a long while... Actually, the entire episode is gonna live rent free for a while. XD Not to mention the "Falling... for you" song plays in the background yet again. Ugh, pulling on heart strings there ;w;

They had us all fooled XD The hand lights were on just to trick us, and in fact were meant to be off this entire time! Oh you sneaky sneaky people. >w<

ALL OF THESE SCENES, they're all so cruel but SO GOOD TwT So cruel in context of how tortured N must be to fight Uzi, but so good in context that this fight sequence and animation is executed SO WELL. All of Nori's slaps were so personal XD Mama Nori educating NUzi

When I saw this scene, I couldn't help but think of ep3 and their dance. This entire episode is so bittersweet ;w;

She's still there TwT And she sees this entire fight. Of what she has become and done to N and omg I'm crying again. Moving on.

OMG YOU SILLY GOOBER BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH XD I love Nori/Heart's reaction, but the Absolute Solver also gets me laughing a bit too hard. "WHAT." That's so simple yet so effective. "What. Why. You are a DD I sent to kill the hosts, why are you hanging out."

The entire scene with NUzi screaming. Just. YES. What better way of gettin rid of stress than screaming! ^_^

Oh you sneaky, sneaky people. Well, all I can say, you got me. You got me good. This is something I didn't think of, but should have. It's simple to get these shots with certain rigs missing. And it was done seamlessly. Well done, well done. I begrudgingly applaud you. XD

HE'S PATTING HER HEAD AAAAHHHHH *proceeds to ascend to another realm*

They did not... omg they did XD Ah, yes, welcome a new horror oh and by the way here- :3 a cute face

Omg they look so cool- KHAN WTF XD

LOL J THE PRIOR HAZARD WARNING AHAHAHAHAHA

The way she shook his hand trying to snap him back to himself and wake up 😭. And the entire sequence following this... I'm just now slowly starting to process it, oh and great I'm sobbing again. Alright, moving on.

Well, I have some thoughts in this. This is personal thoughts, thus this is where you are more than free to yeet this section into the void that Uzi was dragged into... sorry that was a bad joke- anyways. "Die mad." I feel like this is her way of telling N to not give up. To go out there and FIGHT. But if he can't win, then to die like she is. To die in a way that he will be proud of and to go batsh*t crazy. Because by now, Uzi must know that all of their chances of survival are slim. So you might as well go out with a bang and "die mad."

Something I noticed and was further solidified when @bloodywolfwings also mentioned it. Uzi looks at peace here and very accepting of death. And I say, yes, she very much is. I think this was a way of her asking N for forgiveness. For getting mad at him in the beginning of the episode, for failing to be useful/protecting N, and for fighting against him- despite being possessed. And perhaps even, as an incredibly insane and radical thought, for loving him. This entire episode has put the characters and us through the wringer, and that "sacrifice" was just the cherry on top.

Something I have seen already mentioned once at very least (by @/rebecca-babe) and something that also put me on edge was the ending credits... or the lack of. Of course, all the credits roll, but it's not the usual type. Instead of an upbeat music that is either "Uzi the drone killer" or a theme that was seen in the episode... its SILENCE. Being a musician myself, I love how much love has been put into Murder Drones. The sound effects and the main music are always top-notch. But that ending unsettled me the most. The lack of all noise is something that is terrifying and unsettling in that ending. Almost like all the music and sound left with the "sacrifice" of the main character, Uzi. The entire episode was filled with sounds, silence only being present when something incredibly WRONG was happening - like at the beginning when intern Mitchell re-entered the cathedral. And as much as I love how well executed this entire scene was, I hated it. Because that scene does the job that it was set out to do. Put you on edge, and make you feel like all hope is lost. That this is it. This is the end.

This is the end of my rambles and thoughts that I had while watching ep7. I may have more later on as I keep rewatching this episode for the rest of the week ;w;

Want to hear more of my stupid rambles? This has 3 other parts!

[hallowpen]

The plan was to start watching The Sign by divvying up the series into two episodes per day until I could finish. Well…that plan went completely out the window and I ended up binge watching the entire thing in one go. So, as I try to gather my thoughts, I wanted to sort of get my feelings out there on what I thought was an incredible show before I finally unfilter the tags (as to avoid any outside influence on my opinion).

Let me preface this by saying that this is going to be an incredibly bias opinion given my cultural upbringing and background (I'm half-Thai and I've spent almost half of my life living in Thailand), so please take that into account before reading any further. I metaphorically removed my western-lensed glasses while watching this series and preferred to watch as a Thai viewer, which probably made the more confusing or difficult parts of the show a lot easier to swallow. So, yes, I will admit that the show was not perfect by any means, but I was able to overlook a lot of its shortcomings given the parts that had been done so well and what this series could mean for Thai QL media going forward.

My goddess, where do I even start…

I'm a sucker for the reincarnated/fated lovers trope, so the show had me before it even started. What I absolutely loved the most about the romance and the A+ chemistry was that it didn't dominate or singularly drive the story, which was refreshing to see. It gave room to explore the fantasy/mythological elements of the show, the investigatory plotlines (which we'll get to later), and the relationships of the characters surrounding the "main leads".

Episode 3, my beloved, was what solidified my trust in this series and served as the foundation for the personalized experience I curated in my continued viewing. First off (and a bit of a side note), seeing Yoshi show up as Sand just made my heart super happy. I've been following her off and on since 2018, and she was one of the only things I actually liked about หมอ มือ ใหม่… but I digress. Behind the main story (and maybe even because of it), this episode was, for all intents and purposes, a love letter to Thai culture and its religious mythology. Which, when you consider how much international draw a BL series can hold, is truly momentous. International viewers got to experience the Bang Fai Phayanak (the naga fireball festival) that occurs every Wan Ok Phansa (the last day of what is considered Buddhist Lent) and the significance it holds over Thai history and culture. Using this as the stepping stone to establish the importance of the series' reliance on naga folklore…brilliant! The episode was also the viewers' introduction to the Buddhist idea of the cyclical intermingling of karmic fates. How the implications of an interdependence on one fate more than the others would later define the relationship between Phaya, Tharn, and Chalothorn…genius! All of this!? In one episode…of a BL!? I was overwhelmed by a sense of cultural gratitude and pride, that I still can't quite shake. I think Saint knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to adapt this series and I love him even more for it.

Aside from the cultural dependency and relevance, the show delivered so much beyond that as well. The production quality sailed high above previous BL standards and, in turn, lent itself to beautiful visuals and cinematography.

The casting! Billy and Babe's chemistry was just so *chef's kiss*. I knew Billy would absolutely smash it in the role of Phaya, but I often forgot that this was Babe's first ever acting role. It was an undertaking, that you could tell, he did not take lightly. Heng!? Wow! What a performance! He's been a staple in every Idol Factory series thus far, but he really nailed the purely villainous role of Chalothorn. Gap as Yai? No notes. He was able to flesh out what could have been a very one-dimensional character. Tack and Poom as Khem and Thongtai were a welcome levity inbetween, what was otherwise, a more weighty plot.

If I had to address any gripes I had with the series, there were only two that really stood out:

1) I wish the moments/conversations between Tharn and Chalothorn that eventually led to Tharn's return hadn't happened off-screen. There was a lot left to be resolved that could have been explored in that instance. But using my own inference based on Tharn as a character, his relationship with Chalothorn, and the core of his personality, I could kind of piece together how that ending came to be.

2)The lesser intriguing elements of the investigation storylines were shaky, at best. (If you were looking for the show to have a firm western-influenced ACAB agenda, then I'm sorry to say you were setting yourself up for disappointment. As much as I selfishly wanted it to be, this series was never going to be that show, it's a Thai drama.) From a Thai perspective, it made sense that the "copaganda" aspect of the series focused on the incompetency and inefficiency of a police force where justice is often informed by wealth and greed. I got an idea of what the show's stance on the matter was supposed to be but the overall plot and its consistency got lost somewhere within the final execution.

Other than that, I was left feeling satisfyingly content with where the series landed and I will continue to highly recommend it. It's easily one on my top five favorite Thai BL dramas and just Thai dramas in general! And…

There is such a rich history of mythology and folklore left for the show to still sink its teeth into: the garuda of it all, the pre-existing feud between the naga and garuda and why that is… Aside from a few minor specificities that were missing from naga folklore (their exclusion didn't really detract from anything, but it could have served to benefit non-Thai viewers), all of that could be addressed in a second season. Which, at this point, seems pretty likely 🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾 and would be HUGE in the BL world.

PLEASE, LET IT HAPPEN! 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

[room-surprise]

Delicious in Dungeon Anime Season 1, Episode 2 Review

Spoilers for season 1, episode 2 below the cut! There may also be mild manga spoilers so proceed with caution.

This episode was great! I think it was a big improvement on the first. Honestly no real complaints... I do kind of wish both Marcille and Chilchuck could have had stand-alone episodes dedicated to their character development, to allow for a deeper focus, but I understand why they didn't do it, and the pacing was still excellent. I do still sometimes feel like the show is in fast-forward at times, because with 3 meals in one episode, it feels like the characters finish eating, and we jump cut to them saying that they're hungry again, without anything to help really impress upon viewers that time has passed. Makes it feel a bit like we're reading a collection of short 4-panel gag comics instead of a continuing story… which, early Dungeon Meshi DOES have that as part of it's format, but it changes with time, as we get into longer individual stories.

During the Basilisk/Doni and FIonil section, I really do miss some of the dry humor from the manga. ("Hurry, he's getting cold!" "Move him closer to the fire!") The hilarity of slowly preparing a meal while someone is dying of poison has unfortunately been lost, which makes Doni and Fionil much less memorable characters…. But it benefits the other 2 stories in the ep to have more time so I think it was the right choice to make. It also gives people something to go back and read the manga for, since it's a little different! If you're reading this and you're an anime only, consider reading the manga while you watch the anime! I promise it's worth it. I'm excited about next week because I think they'll devote the entire episode to Laios and the living armors, which is me and my spouse's favorite early DM storyline, and the part where we both said "Oh, I LOVE this manga..." and got really invested. It's 2 chapters in the manga so it could be an entire episode…. which also would make sense, if that's why they needed to crunch 3 chapters into episode 2. Just like the first episode, animation was fantastic, and as usual the weakest points are when characters are just walking or talking and not doing much. Everything more dynamic is just bouncy and adorable and full of life. Very rarely is anything animated in a dull or flat way. They're doing their best to use "move a drawing around" or "zoom on a drawing" for comic effect and I think it's working well so far. There's some great animal animation in this episode, the bat flying around and the basilisk chasing Marcille in particular. Translation was better this time around, no dumb modern or game references in the dub ("newbs" "as if" etc.) … But there are differences between the subtitles and the dub script that change how easy it is to understand what's happening. When Senshi tells Chilchuck to cut up the giant bat, the subtitles make it hard to understand what he's telling him to do, and the dub makes it a lot clearer. In the subs when Senshi calls Chilchuck a half-foot child, the subtitles say "I'm not a child" and the dub says "I hate it when people call me 'kid'"… The latter is more interesting for keeping the mystery going for things that happen later in the story. If the show continues like this, I think the English dub may be the more satisfying way to watch it (even though the Japanese performances are great), mostly because the subs are very literal and sometimes miss things that the English dub somehow manages to include. And for some reason Netflix isn't including translation of Japanese signs on-screen during the subtitles, but they DO provide them when you watch the English dub. A lot of Dungeon Meshi's humor is sometimes in those background signs so completely missing out on them sucks. Anyway those are my thoughts for this episode! See you next week Meshiheads.

[xb-squaredx]

A Tribute to Akira Toriyama

It’s been a bit over 24 hours since I’ve heard the news that acclaimed manga author, Akira Toriyama, has passed away, and frankly it’s still hard to process. I’d like to just say a few things to honor and mourn a man that I have never met, but whose work touched me and millions of others all over the world in ways I am only now really beginning to see.

Like a lot of 90s kids in the United States, my first exposure with Toriyama’s work was through the Dragon Ball Z anime. Despite the fact that I didn’t even know this was a sequel to a completely different series, and I had no real clue what anime even was at the time, I was captivated. For years I would race home from school and sit glued in front of the TV as Toonami would air the latest episodes. A phenomenon that rippled out across the world for several years in waves, from the original airing of DBZ, to some snippets of the original Dragon Ball and even later on with the anime-only continuation that was Dragon Ball GT, this series had such a hold on me. Friends and I would spend recess trying to recreate the iconic Kamehameha Wave, we’d scream trying to become a Super Saiyan, or take turns fighting each other in one of the MANY different video games based on the series over time. I’ve made friends through my love of Dragon Ball and it would go on to foster a love of anime and later manga. But little did I know just how far Toriyama’s influence would reach.

While I was never all that knowledgeable of his past work, particularly Dr. Slump, so many other series would be inspired by him or have his involvement in some way. Sonic the Hedgehog’s Super Sonic is an easy reference to spot, but less so was Cloud Strife’s garb in Final Fantasy VII being a dead ringer for Gohan’s outfit in the Cell Saga. As long as we’re talking about RPGs, Toriyama’s long history with various properties, from Chrono Trigger to Blue Dragon, and going back to the grandfather of all RPGS in Dragon Quest, it’s safe to say his legacy is felt in multiple mediums rather than just one. This wasn’t even limited to Japanese media either. I would see references to Dragon Ball in things like The Powerpuff Girls or Codename: Kids Next Door. Even well into my 20s, I was still seeing series inspired by him, like the whole fusion concept that made up Steven Universe. His reach was vast and multigenerational.

As I would get older, I would listen to Linkin Park AMVs on YouTube, with songs like Numb or In the End overlaid over the various hypest moments from the Dragon Ball series and its later movies. Even long after the series had finished airing, you’d still see the rare movie or special crop up, alongside an endless series of games trying to capitalize on the success of the Budokai Tenkaichi games. Toriyama was inescapable, and in a way it was comforting. You start to get used to his work being there, whether subtly or overtly. You never think about the day when he’ll be gone.

When first reading the article stating his death, it took a moment to really let it sink in. This man who had been with me, inspiring me throughout my childhood, was gone just like that. Over the past day I’ve seen the greater Internet in mourning, as people share their favorite manga panels, or iconic moments from the various anime interpretations of his work. Outpourings of fanart and inspirational stories from people who grew up with his work just like I did. There are people that got into bodybuilding to be just like Goku, for one. For another, during the finale of Dragon Ball Super there were massive watch parties set up in Mexico and even when authorities tried to stop the events they went forward anyway because they just had to see how Goku could finally defeat Jiren. I remember when Trunks first appeared in the anime, and I thought he was the coolest. I had to try to draw and replicate his first appearance, how he defeated Frieza, the person that took Goku so long to defeat, in a mere instant; I’m realizing now Toriyama might have been my real inspiration to start drawing, alongside who knows how many thousands if not millions of people. As sad as it is to see him go, to see so many people pay tribute and remember him, it really does lay bare just how influential he was, just how powerful art can really be.

It was only in more recent years that I’ve come to really respect Toriyama’s craft. Far beyond the screaming and power ups that many associate with him from Dragon Ball Z this was also a man who valued whimsy. He got his start as a comedy author, and for the longest time the Dragon Ball manga was just a humorous retelling of Journey to the West. The man loved a good bit of toilet humor and the occasional fourth wall break. Looking back at his manga, you can see just how amazing his panel work was, and how it still holds up. The ease at which he guides your eye from panel to panel, the expressiveness of his characters conveyed at all times. Many of his peers have called him a God of Manga, and I think they’re right to do so. The likes of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of manga, had called Toriyama his heir apparent, and stated he was “almost too good.” You can’t get higher praise than that.

Outside of his manga work, just his raw talent at creating iconic character designs needs to be praised. Taking a rather uninteresting mockup of the slime enemy in Dragon Quest, Toriyama would create perhaps the most iconic enemy in all of video games. His enemy designs are often cute and goofy, but occasionally can be quite ferocious. If nothing else, they are eye-catching and never boring. He was also a fan of vehicles and machines, with some really interesting modes of transportation shown off in a lot of his work. And then there’s the fact that so many of his characters have the trademark spikey haircut that has become shorthand for “anime hair,” that is understood to this day. To see him effectively retire after finishing with Dragon Ball back in the 90s, with the occasional contribution here or there, only to get right back to business as usual in the 2010s with amazing designs like Beerus or Android 21, not to mention his continual work on the Dragon Quest series all throughout that time…the man never lost his edge even once.

A sentiment I’ve seen over the last day or so is that Toriyama might, with no exaggeration, have inspired more artists than anyone else in modern history. So many people making their own “Saiyan-sonas” or being inspired to make manga of their own…we may truly never know how far his reach really was at the end of the day. But we do know that the “Big Three” of Shonen Jump throughout the 2000s can be attributed to Toriyama, as the likes of Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto and Tite Kubo are all big fans of Toriyama, with Oda in particular worshiping the ground he walks on. Kubo is also on the record for stating that a letter from Toriyama, when his first draft of what would later become BLEACH was rejected, gave him the encouragement to try again and later be accepted into the magazine. And now these authors have gone on to inspire the next generation and so on and so on.

Over the last few years, we’ve lost a lot of creative figures in the manga industry. Toriyama now joins other similar legends, such as Yu-Gi-Oh creator Kazuki Takahashi as well as Berserk author Kentaro Miura. It is the end of an era, arguably of many eras, and it can be hard to imagine the future, but the Earth continues to spin and as Toriyama has inspired and influenced others, we too will inspire future generations with our work. It isn’t enough to call him a legend; he truly was in a league of his own, a legend among legends, and the outpouring of love for him across all manner of social media posts in just a little over a day alone is a testament to his immense talent and reach. I can think of no greater sendoff than the one that Eiichiro Oda gave him: “I pray for his soulful rest in peace. May heaven be the joyous world he envisioned.”

Rest in peace, and thanks for everything, Mr. Toriyama.

-B

[khaleesa]

Writing prompts: 11!

I haven't written a word since I finished Guidance Counseling, but this prompt ("just once") finally inspired me! Thank you for submitting it! And thanks to @bratanimus for giving it a once-over. <3

==

Tomorrowland

The rocketship slide, layered with decades of chipped paint and rust, would've been a better vantage point to watch the Creel house for the signal, but Chrissy couldn't bring herself to approach it. Eddie, on the other hand, thundered up the metal slide like an overgrown boy showing off on the playground--which was probably exactly what he was doing. Goofball. She had no such urge and was drawn instead to the ramshackle picnic table tucked beneath the sheltering canopy of the old sugar maples, near a light post that she hoped to God still worked. It would be dark soon. 

In spite of the very serious--not to mention scary--circumstances that brought them here, she felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips as she watched Eddie flail and narrowly avoid falling off the top of the slide when he attempted to crouch beneath the child-sized opening of the rocket. The hatch? It was so weird how they barely knew each other--had never talked before last Friday--but somehow he could make her feel comfortable even in truly uncomfortable situations. 

He bumped his forehead on a metal bar, swore, and rubbed it dramatically as he turned to face her. 

"Laughing at my misery, Cunningham?" he called down to her. "I knew it--you're a sadist!"

"I am not!" Chrissy retorted, groaning inwardly at how lame that sounded. 

They should probably be more quiet; the team inside had planned on absolute silence until the time came to draw out Vecna. Could he hear beyond the dilapidated walls of the old house? 

A shudder rippled down Chrissy's spine. She didn't want to think about Vecna yet. It was hard not to, though, with the darkened windows of the run-down house staring like hollow eyes in skeleton faces. She was glad she wasn't looking at them dead-on. She didn't like how they seemed to be fixed on Eddie. 

Scary as it was, the Creel house also made her feel heavy with sadness. Once upon a time, it had been pretty. Ladies wearing dresses with puffed sleeves and trailing skirts and hair pinned up in elegant styles had sipped tea in the front parlor, while children in lacy pinafores and knickerbockers played in the garden. Later, in the fifties probably, someone had built the space-age playground. It would've looked a little like Disneyland, with pastel Victorian Main Street, USA perched just around the corner from Tomorrowland. There was nothing magical about this, however--except for back magic. The Unhappiest Place on Earth. 

"You okay?"

Chrissy's gaze darted from the house back to the slide, where Eddie stood at the top of the stairs, frozen with that same look of concern that had taken her so much by surprise that day in the forest. You okay? he'd asked then, too. Other people had asked that since she’d started having her episodes--Jason, her friends on the cheer squad--but Eddie was the first one who'd actually seemed to give a damn, to make her feel like maybe she could explain, and maybe he'd get it.

If he hadn't exactly gotten it then, he definitely did now. Chrissy felt just terrible that she'd dragged him into this horror movie that her life had become. Even if he did work awfully hard to make people think he was mean and scary. 

He didn't look scary now, though. He just looked…scared. Like he thought her eyes might glaze and she'd start levitating again, and this time…No. More things she didn't want to think about right now. 

Maybe she could do what Eddie was so good at. Make him feel comfortable. 

She sat up straight--no easy feat on the bowed and off-balance picnic table bench--shoulders back, chin raised, and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm a little offended that you think I'm a sadist." 

Eddie barked out a laugh and bounded down the slide steps, skipping a few, and over to the opposite side of the picnic table. He slapped his palms on the surface and leaned forward, eyes dark and gazing down at her. Chrissy had read about men flashing lascivious grins before; now, she finally had a real-life picture of what that meant.

"I didn't say sadism was a bad thing." Eddie's grin somehow grew even wider as he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Did he hear how sharply Chrissy drew in her breath? Could he see the flush that prickled like a sunburn across her cheeks and ears? Thank goodness for the long shadows cast by the sunset, and that the light post over the table still hadn't turned on. She wracked her brain for a clever response, but Eddie leering down at her was too distracting, and she was totally out of her league when it came to knowledge from dirty magazines and movies. Anyway, Eddie seemed thrilled to have rendered her speechless. Somehow, this didn't make her feel dumb, like Jason did when he knew things she didn't. Eddie just got a kick out of scandalizing her, or corrupting her innocence, or something. 

And over the last couple of days, Chrissy was learning she got a kick out of being scandalized, or corrupted, or something by Eddie.

The light mood didn't last long. Eddie's grin faded as he trudged around the picnic table to straddle the bench next to her. For a moment, they contemplated the Creel house in silence. Eerie silence; no doves cooed in the tree limbs above, no crickets chirped in the unmowed playground grass. Chrissy was about to comment on how weird this was, when Eddie spoke, a cigarette clenched between his teeth. 

"Me and the band…" He trailed away as the lighter snicked and the end of the cigarette flared.

Although Chrissy wasn't a fan of stale, old cigarette smell, she liked fresh smoke. Now, it brought the reassurance that she wasn't the only living thing here, that Eddie was warm and alive beside her. She felt herself shifting a little closer to him, her knee bumping one of his.

Pocketing the lighter, Eddie took a drag, then removed the cigarette to exhale, smoke wreathing him as he went on. "We always talked about having this dump as an album cover. Or shooting a music video here. It's creepy as shit."

Chrissy nodded her agreement. "I feel kind of silly for ever thinking the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is spooky." 

Eddie blew out another puff of smoke. "You've been to Disneyland?" 

"Just once. Have you?"

"Nope." He popped the p definitively; it almost seemed to echo in the quiet of the playground.

"It's probably not your kind of place." 

Eddie sat back, a deep frown tugging at his features, buckling his forehead. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" 

Chrissy flushed as she realized how that sounded. Not like she'd meant it at all. "Just that it's cheesy fantasy stuff. For kids." 

Eddie's shoulders relaxed, and a grin slanted across his face. "Cunningham. What do you think Dungeons and Dragons is? Honestly, Disneyland sounds right up my alley." 

That wasn't exactly in line with how he and Dustin had explained Dungeons and Dragons to her, but Chrissy was just relieved he wasn't offended anymore. "But you wouldn't think the Haunted Mansion is even a little bit scary," she said. "Not compared to all those movies you like." 

Eddie seemed to consider this as he smoked, turning his head toward the Creel House. "After this week, I think maybe I've had enough horror shit." 

Chrissy's heart gave a squeeze in her chest, but before her guilt could take hold, Eddie's fingers closed around her knee, and she found herself looking into his dark, glittering eyes again. 

"Tell you what," he said. "If I graduate? We're going to Disneyland." 

An image sprang into Chrissy's mind of the two of them strolling toward Sleeping Beauty Castle, Eddie in denim and leather and chains and Mickey Mouse ears. But that wasn't what made Chrissy let out a shriek of delighted laughter, then clap her hand over her mouth lest Vecna hear them or Eddie somehow read her mind and think she was making fun of him. Or it wasn't only that. If I graduate, he'd said, not, If we make it out of this alive. Graduation came after. They would have an after. 

"Not if you graduate, Eddie," she said. "When." 

Eddie smiled--not the maniacal, teeth-baring grin, but biting his lip, ducking his head, hair falling in his face. He leaned in, close enough that Chrissy could smell the cigarette on his breath. She wanted to taste it on his lips. 

"And, uh, if the Haunted Mansion gets too spooky for you…you can…" His tongue darted out to lick his lips. "...hold my hand." 

His gaze dropped, and Chrissy saw his hand had moved from her knee, close to hers on the bench. His pinky touched the side of her hand. She flicked hers out to touch it. 

In the dormer window of the Creel house, a light flashed on, and they both sat up. The signal.

"But I'm the one who'll probably be shitting my pants," Eddie rasped.

Gripped with a sudden courage and decisiveness, Chrissy stood up. "Then you can hold my hand," she said, and twined their fingers together. 

~*~

If you'd like a fic, drop a prompt in my asks!

[theweirdhybrid]

SOOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT DID YOU THINK OF SEASON 4!?~

-Abandoned King anon

So answering this is like [ checks watch ] two months late but I finally found a place I could watch it! I'll admit I wasn't spending a whole lotta time looking bc my brain switched to hyperfixating on TMNT instead of LMK, BUT, that doesn't mean my love for the series disappeared!

I'm actually hoping to start working on Into The Wukongverse again after I finish the season :0 I haven't seen the specials yet unfortunately, the website I'm using doesn't have them bc they're not out in english yet I don't think :(

But also, if I start work on Into The Wukongverse again, I'll be working on it alongside my ROTMNT fic "Just This Once, Everybody Lives" because I refuse to abandon that fic. I have vivid stories in my mind for both, and sure, I haven't touched ITTW in... a while, BUT I haven't stopped thinking about it this whole time! I still have the masterpost pinned for a reason! I'll have to go back and redo some of it, but I'm still working on it, I promise!

(this gets long so I'm slapping a read more on this bad boy)

So my initial thoughts when I saw how different the sworn brothers were from the original cast of brothers (i wasn't terribly surprised honestly considering how different LMK already is to the source material) was actually delight! I'd already known about the new demons, since they made book appearances (it's been... a while since I've thought deeply about LMK, I'll be honest, so some lore has slipped from my brain unfortunately) and I can't quite remember if they were part of the og brotherhood or not, but I DO know they were adversaries that Wukong fought later on! So it was really cool to see them animated like that! Makes me wonder what became of the og brotherhood members, tho.

It was honestly a little funny how Azure told MK and Mei not to draw attention to themselves and the first thing they do is try to kidnap Tripitaka after saving him from being eaten XD Honestly, these doofuses... The episodes are very fast paced, but it's understandable considering they're only eleven minutes long

And also...

Married. Married, holy SHIT they are so married I'm not even joking LOOK AT THIS OH MY GOD also the "I'm your Tangy :(" line- HUSBANDS. MARRIED. OH MY GOD. Literally this was so fucking cute oh my goooOOOOOOOOOOOOD-

Also, the entire thing of "No, Wukong's not my dad. Pigsy's my dad." and MK denying Wukong being his dad w the "If he was my dad don't you think he would've said something by now?" and then Mei shooting back with "Yeah, because he's sooooo forthcoming with information." was AMAZING. It had me looking at my lore for the Wukongverse and going "Yeah that tracks" XD

AND THEN TANG BEING TELEPORTED TO THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN AND BEING OFFERED WATER FROM THE RIVER AND IMMEDIATELY SCREAMING IN TERRORR AND TELEPORTING AWAY WAS FUCKING AMAZING I'M FUCKING CRYINGGGGGG

AND THE- THE BRIEF TELEPORTATION TO NEZHA AND AO BING'S FIGHT?????? HI HELLO I'M GOING FUCKING INSANE

AND THE LADY BONE DEMON CAMEOS...

AND AO LIE!!!!!!!! HEHEHA

I love knowing my JTTW history this is so fucking cool :D

Also, regarding who MK really is, I just wanna say... I FUCKING CALLED IT. I CALLED IT!!! I KNEW, THE MOMENT I SAW MK REVERT TO A STONE EGG IN THE FIRST EPISODE THAT THERE WAS NO WAY HE WASN'T A STONE MONKEY TOO >:D

In fact, depending on how canon fully reveals what's going on MK and his past, I might even be able to say I predicted it w the ITTW lore :p I never did reveal how MK came to be, but I never forgot that piece of lore, so we'll have to see how it holds up to canon, but it looks like my version of the lore is pretty similar to canon but! We'll just have to see :)

[strollthroughstars29]

My thoughts on

The Midnight Club (2022)

I just finished watching The Midnight Club last night and couldn't help feel how it was like a beautiful work of art left unfinished. When I started the show, I was really impressed by the way the foundation was laid but several things were left unexplained but we'll get there later.

First off, let's talk about the true essence of the show; the stories. While I absolutely loved the way the characters expressed their unconscious/concious desires through the stories knowing that they wouldn't come true, that the future they paint will continue to remain trapped behind words, I couldn't help but feel that we could've been introduced to this world in a better way.

By the time we learn about Natsuki's story regarding the Japanese myth, it's already progressed into a "frenzy of jump scares" which completely ruined the atmosphere for me and I found myself wanting it to be over as soon as possible.

The next thing I wish to address is Ilonka's character. She is a complex teen who is unable to accept the terminal nature of her life and that she cannot be saved. Initially, I liked her drive to survive but as the episodes carry on, we see her completely lose herself in the desperate attempt to grasp what's left of her life. Her character itself had multiple flaws which were further enhanced by the fact that so many things about her were left unexplained.

Why was Ilonka having visions?

Was it because of her medication? Maybe. But it could also, be due to her being most open to the spiritual aspect of the place. She openly sought to achieve wellness through the nature and was engrossed by the past which might've manifested in the form of visions. Maybe her sharing these thoughts with Kevin was the reason for his own visions.

Another aspect of the show I really wanted to see were the stories coming together in the end (as we had in the haunting series) but was really underwhelmed. There were too many plot holes which raised a lot of questions.

Who is Dr. Georgina Stanton?

In the final episode, her ties to the Paragon are hinted at. I personally found myself drawing ties between her and Regina Ballard (Aceso). Regina, upon performing the ritual had lost her hair which kinda made me think if Stanton had also tried to do the same for her son (resulting in the loss of her hair, being the only survivor).

Who are the old ghosts?

This really got me scratching my head finding answers. Maybe they're yet again manifestations of the negative emotions arising in the kids but I'm not sure. Also, how is Kevin connected to the old woman and why does Ilonka keep seeing her where Kevin is?

All these are left unanswered which really irks the viewers to know more.

(I have not read the books and all my interpretations are solely based on the show)

[oneofthepowerful]

February 10th 2024 - Blog 2

Roughly every week or so, I would like to share some behind the scene progress of my series One of the Powerful, as it has been going through some developments, which we shall be discussing starting with this blog.

Rigging

After hand drawing two, over 10 minute animatic episodes. While storyboarding Episode 3 (which will be heavily action focused) I began thinking about how I could save time drawing as I noticed each episode taking longer and longer to make due to me being a one-man animation team. One of these ideas was creating 2D puppet rigs, that could allow me to pose characters like an action figure. And since I learned how to use control points to rig hair strands in Clip Studio Paint, I thought I could settle with that. As yes, it saves time, however since the program is very limited when it comes to puppet animation, being more of an illustration and frame by frame 2D animation software, I felt like there could be a better way to do what I felt would be best for this series.

I proceeded to study a few cartoons that I noticed used 2D rigged puppet animation, and looked into the software that some of the shows were made in. One that really interested me was Toon Boom Harmony, I saw that some people were able to give the appearance that a character is 3D by using controls even though it was all 2D, like this. I knew I wanted to learn something like this for my series, being able to pose a character’s head in different angles with some adjustment here and there would save so much time!! However, Toon Boom is WAYYY out of my budget sadly, but then I saw that Blender Grease Pencil and its rigging tools could give me a very similar if not the exact same result:

I’ve used Blender in the past, however only for creating basic camera movements for some of my animations. I had made a donut a couple of years ago but that was just about my experience with the program, my knowledge with Blender is very much limited. However, I was dedicated to try and give this whole rigging idea a chance so I proceeded to watch some tutorials to learn not only 2D rigging, but also Blender’s Grease Pencil, due to it being able to draw with vectors. Over a month later, I thought I’d share my progress:

After learning how to rig an eye, mouth and eyebrow to understand the basics of rigging; I noticed just how time consuming and tedious the whole process is, there is a lot of steps and A LOT of trial and error as anything can go wrong, it can take multiple rigging attempts to get the result you are after. But once you finish a rig, it’s such a rewarding time saver in the long run!

Once I understood the basics of rigging, for the past few weeks I have been chipping away at a 2D rig head turn, following this tutorial series! Using Hoshi as a test, since I thought he would be the easiest out of the main cast to rig, and well… that was until I was drawing out and rigging his hair - I had to really think about how each strand was all layering on top of one another and it was extremely time consuming, however I have got it mostly working now!

Currently, all of Hoshi’s facial features are rigged, this past week or so I’ve been rigging his mouth using what I learned rigging the last one. And it’s decent -but like most of the rig, it needs more refinement, being all a bit unpolished. I have also been having a lot of trouble rigging his lips, as they don’t deform the same way as the mouth rig, causing me having to place the lips manually, every time I change the mouth pose - which is a pain, so I’ve been trying to get it working with little luck at the time of writing. I also need to add in proper controls for the rig to make it more easier to animate, which will be done once everything is rigged and working as it should.

Down below, are some expression tests I did with Hoshi's rig, keep in mind these are all still a work in progress as I mentioned the rig is quite unpolished, however I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!! ^^

Concepts

While working on the rig, I have been making some minor rewrites, like adding more depth to events and characters in the story of OotP - which at this point in time I cannot speak much on due to heavy spoilers. However, Season 1 may end quite differently than originally planned, the ending being more polished and more organically linking things up, instead of things just coincidently happening. This all leading into season 2 more smoothly! ;)

Since I’ve been rigging, I’ve been thinking about character design a lot and thought since Episode 1 and 2 are likely going to be remade using 2D puppets for consistency sake. I’ve been wanting to slightly update some character designs, as I’ve barely changed the main casts' civilian designs since 2021 if memory serves me right, and there is somethings I want to change more with Cassidy and Hoshi’s designs - Erin’s design is fine for the time being, but I will change a few minor things like simplify their hair slightly for rigging, however their design changes will come up at a later date.

With Cassidy since she is based off a lion, I had her hair be in a braid to sorta resemble a lion tail.

However, for her new civilian design I’m considering having her hair more curly and bushy to fit her more happy, chaotic, bubbly personality, and to have it now sort of look like a lion’s mane? Then when she goes into her Powerful State (where a Powerful, someone who has magic, transforms to use their full abilities) I will have her hair transform in a long braid like before! Imagining the transformation for that is super fun!! 😀

I am also considering changing her outfit a little to be more casual and to have it easier to rig? I think changing her colour scheme to fit more with her blonde hair and the whole lion resemblance would be cool, however I might leave that for her powerful state outfit? I’m still figuring out her outfit, but I like the bright colours of the middle illustration (down below) as it fits her loud, outgoing personality!!

Also did you know that once a Powerful’s magic awakens (this can happen from when they are a child, like Erin’s case, or when they are a teen like Hoshi) it can sometimes alter their appearance when in their civilian form or "disguise", most commonly their hair. For an example, Cassidy used to have dark hair, however once her magic awakened, her hair changed to blonde. However everyone in this world, Powerless or not can be born with any hair colour, or people can choose to dye it. :D

Onto Hoshi, I have drawn some expression tests, being reference for the rig!

While working on Cassidy’s redesign sketches I thought I’d tweak Hoshi’s outfit a little as well. Without spoiling much, Hoshi wants to become as unnoticeable as possible, like he doesn’t exist (at least in his civilian design). When I designed Hoshi a few years back, I didn’t really flesh out his past or motivations all that much. So now looking at his current design, the contrasting colours of red and green could symbolise his messed up mental and physical state, but I’m not sure how much it really fits him outside of that, and I think the colours also stand out a bit too much for what Hoshi wants. So I’ve been thinking of toning his outfit's colour palette down a bit. I still don’t know if I will get rid of his red jacket as that has stuck with him since the very start back in 2020:

For rigging, you really want to avoid placing details on joints, and I knew that Hoshi’s knee ripped jeans would most likely make things quite complicated, so I am going to also play around with different designs for that in the near future!!

Down below are a couple of colour variations of a sketch from a potential updated Hoshi design:

I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this!! I hope these blogs provide more insight on the progress of the series behind the episodes!!

Thank you all very much for reading! ^^

[floofz]

i just finished watching ep five... can i know your thoughts on it

OUGH... so many thoughts my dude... where do i even start...

well first of all this episode completely wrecked me emotionally. domestic violence is always hard to watch, but damn did they do their best to make it as horrible as possible (in a good way! its amazing how studio lan sheds light on these kinds of things happening). the animation - the expressions, the hitting, the bruises - the audio design - god the sounds of the violence alone were so fucking heartwrenching. and then the involvement of the kids too. it was so so painful to watch but it was so incredibly well done.

we finally get to know more about the two siblings (and also confirmation that the two are actually involved! plus that lu guang turns out not to be the good brother in the childrens drawing). the scene with cheng xiaoshi being amused about the brother's behaviour and childish thinking seems funny at first, but when you later see the family situation theyre in, it all just makes so much painful sense. he has all this rage and strong sense of justice in him bc they are growing up in this unstable household full of violence. its heartbreaking.

the boy the brother met at the fountain, i first thought it was a young cheng xiaoshi bc of the haircut, but his voice was very different so now im perplexed. they could just be trying to throw us off here but i cant imagine them picking such a drastically different voice from cheng xiaoshi for him, especially bc we already heard his voice as a kid in s1. now my guess is maybe a young qian jin? it would check out with what we know about younger him. and i mean were 5 episodes in we kinda need to get to all the connections eventually.

now, lu guang and cheng xiaoshi. i've already seen people on reddit talk about how lu guang seems off again this episode. what particularly makes me think though is that one scene where their connection supposedly went "bad". i mean, everything, especially in animation, is very intentional so there must be much more to it. im wondering if someone interfered with their connection. one theory i also saw and thought about it a bit more on my own: what if red eyes - either one of the siblings - somehow possessed lu guang during their dive for a short time, making him unable to talk to cheng xiaoshi on his own, hence the silence. and after that he also doesnt realize he was silent for a while. and bc one of the siblings took hold over him for a sec, they saw what lu guang saw and that would explain why the sister supposedly knows cheng xiaoshi (and wants to talk to him at the police station) and that he was involved with her past through the dive. though i guess she could also know about him from qian jin. idk, I JUST HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

all in all a fucking fantastic episode but i did have to take a break after watching it. its very emotionally draining. but you can definitely tell the care and thought they put into this.

OH WAIT I ALMOST FORGOT. the little soft expressions and smiles from lu guang when cheng xiaoshi acted cute as xixi in the episode made me explode<3 gdi once again cheng xiaoshi never sees his soft expressions, LU GUANG LOOK AT HIM LIKE THAT WHEN HE CAN SEE.

anyway yeah lots of thoughts 😭 PLS also let me know what you think!!!

[jicklet]

Finished the Persona 5 Anime, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would!

I definitely wouldn't recommend it to someone as their primary P5 experience, but if you've played the game and are hungry for more, it’s worth checking out!

Most of the fun is in how they connect all these various plots together into a coherent narrative, linking the confidant progressions into what’s happening with the overall plot or character development.

My favorite example of this is in the episode with Yusuke's confidant where he makes his speech at the end about his friends keeping him on track. Ren clearly learns from that, and so later when he gets into a discussion with Akechi about the Phantom Thieves being dangerous, Ren is able to echo Yusuke when he says that as long as the Thieves stay true to their justice, they'll stay on track. It’s a nice way to keep everything moving forward.

Another nice thing is that two infamously problem scenes got (imho) massively improved: the Mona-Ryuji fight, and the Ryuji scene at the end of Shido’s palace. I’ll go into more detail on how after some other stuff under the cut.

Cons 😅

They also threw in some weird extra fanservice moments in the first half, along the lines of generic anime “Ah yes Ann’s ass is talking” moments. Thankfully they seem to drop that in the second... season? half? whatever it is. Basically midway through there’s a new intro and they stop pulling that shit.

Yeah so the animation quality is notttt good, they seem to have been working off Yusuke’s food budget and everything went into making the fight scenes look almost decent. If you watch video essays, this can almost be treated like that; if you have a project to work on it’s nice to have this on to mostly listen to and occasionally look up at. BUT they do some nice stuff with stills, that's how we get things like baby Yusuke and Makoto and Haru, and some extra time of them all actually having fun at Destinyland. ♥

Ren 🙋‍♂️

So our protagonist is both helped and hindered by the medium shift. He does get things to say and I enjoyed that! Overall though he definitely feels less main-character-y with so much else to focus on. He shines in one-on-one scenes, over time you can see him become more comfortable and confident over time, especially once Futaba joins and we get some more time with Sojiro. But in group scenes I honestly tend to forget he's there.

Shippy stuff 💗

You could easily headcanon Ren as ace or gay or just shy. They keep all his relationships platonic and he never really reacts to being flirted with any way except being uncomfortable.

Oh, though if you’re an Akechi or Joker/Akechi fan... yeah just go watch this, trust me.

Most of my Yutaba moments got skipped or cut short, alas but it’s understandable. The real win here was for Ryuann! They're always rushing over to check on each other, and oh man Erica seriously brought it for Ryuji-possibly-died scene. And, speaking of...

Improvements!! 🌟

Mona-Ryuji “fight”: I was dreading getting to this part as I always do, and then... I actually ended up kind of enjoying it?

Part of it was just due to the medium switch, you don't have all that excruciating in-game time as Joker where you're forced to do nothing while something is CLEARLY bugging Morgana. The tighter timeline and focus of the anime does a better job drawing a line directly from the dream/Morgana’s growing insecurities to Morgana lashing out at Ryuji, making it more obvious how much he's projecting.

The game also splits the focus between “The problem is Mona being insecure but also Ryuji’s ego” which muddies things. In the anime, you didn't get everyone crawling up Ryuji's ass about apologizing; Ann could tell Ryuji was worried because they've been friends and she knows him. Ryuji apologizing was his own choice, which put the focus less on “it’s Ryuji’s fault this isn’t getting solved” and more towards dealing with the actual problem of Mona feeling unappreciated. The lesson was more clearly “You weren’t wrong to feel that way, what was wrong was how you handled it,” which made it all hit stronger when everyone came together to be like “hey man we’re sorry we made you feel like that, you absolutely belong here.”

Shido’s palace: They cut the end off!! 🎉🎊🎉 It only showed Ann, Haru, and Futaba crying and yelling at Ryuji, which is fine and believable as them being emotional and worried, cut to Ren, Makoto, and Yusuke watching them, then it ends! Bam, fixed, we’re good.

Conclusion 🎉

So yeah, think of it as supplemental material. If you’re already a Persona 5 fan, I recommend checking it out! If you have a friend who hasn’t played the game... either have them play the game or show them a let’s play or something, don’t use this as an intro, we all know it could be better 😅

[yourubersawcrit]

I've been divinely inspired to send asks to others, so here I am. You've sent me some asks about my thoughts on Invincible, so it's about high time I send you some myself. I want to hear all of it; your favorite characters, least favorite characters, thoughts, predictions, the works. Feel free to rant, as I am actively encouraging it. :))))

I FOUND IT, HUZZAH!!

So! I'll do my best to write my rant as best as I can. Disclaimer for spoilers of the fourth episode of S2 if you haven't watched it, just in case, heh.

First of all, I learned about the series' existence by that meme at the top of this post a friend sent on a chat group we had; he drew fanart as well! After that, some users of another server wanted me to draw a character on that meme pose Omni-man was doing that showed his ass while kneeling —I believe it's still on my art sideblog—.

I wanted to watch it on my own, yet upon realizing I needed a Prime account, I decided to watch it with my parents. The first time I tried, it was night time, and they fell asleep before finishing episode one, which, in the context of the series, it was the best possible outcome for them. In my case, I watched all of it; it was just nice to have a more realistic approach of a young superhero and a family!

And that change of tone? Delightful! I gasped and enjoyed all the graphic details, as well as how much the GotG were hurt upon realizing Nolan was killing their colleagues, their friends.

Time passed, and I forgot about the series until I made my parents watch the Meet the Team videos, to then take advantage of their willingness so we could finish the series.

And oh boy, they did enhance the experience.

I still remember when Debbie said that Nolan was going to come home later for lunch, to then hear a small chuckle from my mother. A little bit of context should be provided, so I'll do that. My father works for the Navy here, and as consequence, he tends to go to other cities or board ships for days, weeks, even months, as well as working late; it has been normalized.

Watching a 17 year old guy wanting to be more than he was able to ever think possible as a 17 year old kid at the time was fascinating, if not sometimes painful. And now Mark is in college, heh. Yeap, the show hit home a few times, more than necessary.

What can I say about S1 overall? It was amazing! The sort of murder mystery tone it got was great to follow since we knew the who, not the why; and watching how Debbie was more and more sure about her theory was entertaining yet heart-stopping, as she was the only person capable of confronting Nolan and getting away with it. She worries me still, I want her to get her catharsis so she feels better; please writers, Debby deserves to be happy. She reminds me of my mother from time to time.

It's interesting how in the comics she is a housewife, yet in the series they decided to give her some agency and make her have a stable job, which may be the reason why they live in that house on the first place! She said “Get out of my house!” for a reason.

Mark, oh Mark. Watching him get physical and mentally damaged was such a journey that I enjoyed until I began caring for him just as with Debbie. He reminded me of another character that I deeply love, Kiana Kaslana, based on the fact that both characters were compared to someone related to them, as well as kept fighting for humanity although there were many reasons to stop doing so; also they are deeply traumatized.

And if the series' writers decide to follow the arc that Mark had in the comics, I may not survive. I'd implode from all the implications of it. TL;DR, let my guy be happy!

Nolan, ah Nolan. My partner thought he was going to be my favorite character, but Mark's existence takes the first place for sure. This man is so fascinating, being one of the strongest beings yet a complete insensitive dum dum goofball at the moment he has to express his honest feelings and thoughts thanks to all those years of Viltrumite indoctrination.

I hope he stops using Mark as a punching bag for his internal struggles. Looking at S1 episode 8 and S2 episode 4, he grabs his son as a ragdoll and yells at him as if that would convince Mark to be by his side? And the way he's feeling empathy now, hahah you fucker, have deep emotions now! It would have been preferable back on Earth, though. I wonder if the other Viltrumites will commit the execution or not.

I like most of the secondary characters, William is on thin ice, though, since he's uncaring of remembering Mark hurtful mistakes he's done, it doesn't seem William is joking sometimes, which confuses me since both characters are good friends and should know what may be a negative memory to the other.

My girl Amber is doing well! Good thing the writers realized that making her get mad at Mark based on his superhero life was not the best idea, resulting in Amber being more understanding on S2.

Eve is isolating herself, and her father kind of pisses me off because the story is quite vague in trying to prove if he's right or just trying to be more realistic, I'm referring to the incident he showed Eve that was wrote on the newspaper.

And the way they convey the concept of being more akin to someone you once saw divine, now showing its true colors, realizing you may go through the same path while everyone else acts if you already were that person, who brought nothing else but pain. It's wonderful.

It's an amazing show that has the privilege of being one of the few that made me care for the characters and their journey. Let's hope it ends with a bang when the time comes.

[monstersummongenre]

Chloe in Ep 135 Pokemon! I’m Glad I Met You

So...

Maybe, maybe, Chloe's projecting a bit in the episode. By this I mean she is sorta putting her feelings about Goh onto his reaction to/feelings about Ash in this episode. So let’s talk about how Chloe reacts in this episode. 

Here’s Chloe’s reaction when first spotting Goh in Cerise Park, she’s genuinely excited and happy to see her good friend Goh, back after being gone for a while:

However this is her reaction hearing him say he was going on a journey. She immediately backs up and ducks down.

She's surprised and instead of approaching she hides, just like how she might be hiding her feelings.

When they actually do discuss his thoughts on going on a journey, she doesn't seem exactly excited to know Goh is planning on leaving. Like I could argue she looks a little strained. 

She just found out Goh is considering leaving on a long term journey and the main reason he hasn’t fully decided yet is because of his friendship with Ash. He didn’t even ask her what she thinks, and didn’t seem to be planning on it either.

Later, she's nearly just as surprised as Goh to hear Ash has already decided to leave, and yes this is mainly because she already knows Goh's feelings and thoughts on the two separating. But still. (Though I also think it could be partially influenced by the thought they are both planning on leaving her behind.)

When Goh rushes off, Chloe actually gets up faster than Cinderace.

But ultimately she decides against going immediately after him, opting to stop and talk to Ash first, to sorta give him an idea of how Goh's feeling. Because she gets it.

She shares what Goh said then draws a conclusion herself. She's likely writing herself off because she doesn't fully feel as important to Goh as he is to her. And it's been like that for her growing up, she's used to it. She gets the pain of your friend making decisions and heading off without taking you in account.

Just earlier that day Goh didn’t say he felt like he was betraying his friendship to Chloe by leaving, he said he felt like he was betraying his friendship to Ash. Literally in episode 2 she's gone out of her way to bring him his homework because she knows he's going to her dad's lab, but instead of checking in with her, he just texts her, after already being late, 'sorry gonna be late, about to have a fateful encounter' not really taking in account her feelings before making a decision, either time. 

Just as it currently seems Ash didn't take Goh’s feelings into account before making his decision.

But more on her writing herself off, when making this decision that she's not Goh's first friend, there is like some bit of hesitance before heading off, I feel like.

We don't see her face, they hide it from us. It’s not done in away that’s awkward or makes you on a normal watch stop and question why we don’t see her face as Chloe’s feelings are not the focus here, but I think it also supports this idea that she's, in a way, hiding. She couldn’t look directly at Ash as she finished that statement because she, as I’m sure all, if not most, of us were, was likely thinking, “What about her?”

As a matter of fact, in a sense she's hidden a couple of times this episode. There obviously was her hiding when Goh was talking about possibly going on a journey, but then this too is sorta hiding, as she’s there but she’s away from them, out of sight. She sees them but they aren’t at all aware she’s even there.

Also, I think it's possible part of her writing herself off is her feeling as though she wasn't like a friend-friend to him.

Like she didn't share his interests or excitements for a good chunk of their lives but when Ash showed up he immediately shared Goh's excitement & interests. They were attached at the hip.

In some ways, that could feel like she wasn't good enough since Goh contacted her but not frequently or anything. While he doesn't separate from Ash at all really.

But in other ways, it could feel like a failure on her end. Like she didn't do enough for him. And while really there’s not much she could’ve done, she still could feel bad about it. That’s all really just speculation though.

Either way we know that Goh’s often doing his own thing. He didn’t typically invite her to hang out with him or anything during their time spent growing up. She was essentially left behind.

Then in the end of the episode she's still left behind by them. Just as they were discussing doing during the episode. She’s used to being sorta left behind and not really taken into account, (even sorta by her family recalling the episode she met Dawn since she went by herself because despite the family having planned a vacation they all made other plans, disregarding their plans with her and her feelings and she had no one to hang out with). And I just imagine it still hurts even if she’s used to it and hiding the fact that she’s hurt.

I don’t know how exactly to conclude this thought but I think there's still potential for her relationship with each of them to grow. Especially with Goh if I’m being honest, as I don’t think they’ve sat down and talked about what happened with their relationship.

[whovianwholikesgirls]

“This change of times won’t drive you away ” U2, “Drowning Man” 1983

Even when they weren't here beside him, he could still feel echoes of tiny snapshots of his friendship with Kate in this house. He stayed close to the word friendship, like a moth to a flame, because the word relationship felt too heavy. Too adult. Even though they hadn’t been kids for a long time now.

He and Kate never had to say it out loud but Jonathan knew that as much as their parents expected them to not be kids, when they were together they were going to act as childlike as possible to give themselves a break from the hell of having to act like the parents of their younger siblings. Kate always said they felt bad for even relating to this part of Jonathan because he had to act like an adult 24/7 and they only had to do it three months out of the year when they had visitation with their father. However, Jonathan reassured them once they both had the words to name their shared trauma that the timelines didn’t matter. He was just happy to talk to someone who understood.

Now, only the cassette of U2’s new album War he kept safe with him at all times really understood the thoughts that kept him awake at night. It was hard to talk to the person you always trusted your secrets with about something that was eating you alive when that thing involved them.

He would lock himself away in his room and listen to the album later, it was his favorite stress reliever anyway, but just for a little while he sat down on the couch in the living room and let himself remember when times were less complicated. If he sat in the living room long enough he could hear them and Will racing each other to the TV to watch the newest episode of Doctor Who.

“Jonathan!! You have to watch with us. It’s your obligation as best friend to me and big brother Will "

“Yeah!” Will had said, “obli- what?”

“Obligation dear Will” they said with a smirk. “It means something that someone is required to do” “required means-“

“Kate, I know what that means!”

“Sorry!! I just like big words.”

“And Jonathan” Will had said, “you like Jonathan as much as you like words and books.”

Fuck. How had he forgotten about that comment? His brain was officially trying to torture him now. Maybe listening to Bono was the only thing that would make him feel better. He wanted Kate, in more ways than one, but he couldn’t have them so he might as well settle for songs that remind him of them. It was only a matter of time before he knew he might say something he’d regret for the rest of his life.

He passed the kitchen on the way to his room and he remembered a time when they were sitting in the kitchen together, drawing with Will.

“It’s just so frustrating!!” they exclaimed, putting their crayons down. “I’m about to be in middle school with you, and I don’t even know how to use the stove. I know my mom loves me and she’s just trying to protect me but if a stove is there to give people food, how can it be dangerous? I just feel like it’s something I should be able to learn how to do!!”

Jonathan saw that their eyes were filling up with tears now and he’d vowed then and there to never see them like that again.

“I can teach you,” he’d said. And he remembered Kate looking at him like he hung the moon, it made his breath catch even now as much as it did then.

“Really??? You’re the best!!” they bit their lip nervously.

“But…. What if we get caught?”

“Kate, it's just grilled cheese, you’ll be fine. And we can just say I made it.”

They had hugged him then and he never wanted them to let him go.

The best part of that day, he remembered, was after they finished making their sandwich, they put it on the plate and said proudly, “Jonathan holy shit I did it!!”

To which they immediately covered their mouth and their eyes grew wide.

Jonathan couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

“Jonny, it's not funny!!” they exclaimed, stomping their foot. “I’m not supposed to say that, it’s a bad word.”

“Where did you hear it?” He’d asked them curiously.

“Emily.” they whispered.

Ah, he should’ve known. Their half sister was nine years older than them and about to go to college. Kate totally could’ve overheard their sister say something that their mother swore wasn’t meant for her ears. Even though he was pretty sure Margaret swore just as much as anyone else.

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d said, "your secret is safe with me.”

“I love you, did you know that? You’re literally the bestest friend anyone could ever have.”

“Gross” Will had said and gone back to drawing.

Okay, Jonathan thought, enough with the memories. I need to listen to my favorite album to completely shut my brain off. If I think about them much longer, Kate’s going to drive me insane.

He supposed that wouldn’t be one of the worst ways to go.

@itsfreakingbats can’t remember if you’ve read this one or not but @anything-thats-rock-and-roll has and I wanted to bring it out of the Google doc and into the Tumblr blog